Convenience

Identifying New Markets
Successful entrepreneurs also excel at discovering whole
new markets. Discovery can happen in at least two ways. First, an entrepreneur can
transfer a product or service that is well established in one geographic market to a
second market. This is what Marcel Bich did with ballpoint pens, which occupied a
well-established market in Europe before Bich introduced them to the United States.
Bich’s company, Société Bic, eventually came to dominate the U.S. market.
Second, entrepreneurs can sometimes create entire industries. Entrepreneurial inven-
tions of the dry paper-copying process and the semiconductor have created vast new
industries. Not only have the first companies into these markets been very successful
(Xerox and Texas Instruments, respectively), but their entrepreneurial activity also has
spawned the development of hundreds of other companies and hundreds of thousands
of jobs. Again, because entrepreneurs are not encumbered with a history of doing busi-
ness in a particular way, they are usually better at discovering new markets than are
larger, more mature organizations.
established market
A market in which
several large firms
compete according
to relatively well-
defined criteria
niche
A segment of a
market not currently
being exploited
Chapter 5:
Entrepreneurship and New Venture Management
1 3 9
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