CASE STUDY 6.1

GetStarted' Advertising, New Zealand

GetStarted is a three-year-old dynamic business, a form of online advertising enabling and

facilitating highly targeted advertising of new businesses and SMEs across private and public

Sites (portals, hubs, commercial sites, corporate sites, intranets and extranets). Getstarted is

typically targeted to novice businesses and SMES by providing them with a competitive advantage

through online promotion "right from the startup point, Jackie and Brigitte, two fifty-year-old

teachers from Wellington, New Zealand, first launched a business for high-school entrepreneurs

in 2000; their business ran for fifteen months, but it never turned a profit and the two decided

to close it. However, they developed a new concept in the advertising sphere, which later evolved

into the launching of GetStarted. Jackie was a high-school mathematics teacher with over fifteen years' experience and Brigitte was a remedial teacher assisting underachieving pupils with learning needs on an individual basis. They worked in the same district school tor over ten years. Jackie quit her job due to severe differences of opinion with the school principal and suggested that Brigitte join her on anentrepreneurial adventure. Brigitte accepted but retained her job at the school. "One of the main difficulties we faced in our first business was in locating businesses that would be willing to assist high-school entrepreneurs; we were looking for novice businesses to mentor high-school students in the entrepreneurial process. We believed that it would be a win-win situation; yet novice businesses used poor advertising due to financial constraints at the startup stage. We found it very difficult to locate them, said Jackie The reasons for the first business failure were only partly related to this, but having discovered the lack of advertising in businesses stratup stage, they developed a practical model to assist young businesses in online advertising. Following the closure of their first business, it was Brigitte

who came up with the idea to start a new virtual venture in advertising. Jackie was hesitant, as

neither of them had any professional experience in the advertising world. Brigitte's enthusiasm

convinced Jackie and they decided to exploit this possibility. Encouraged and supported by some

local agencies, they conducted a search among business people in New Zealand of their need for

an online advertising forum; the results were inconclusive and could not assist the two in

developing a concept to assist those business people. They decided to enlarge their search to

Australian business people, but again the results of their search were vague.

At that time, Brigitte had many commitments at the school and almost dropped the whole

idea of launching a second business. but one day, on her way to the mall, she came across 'the

smallest and most charming, adorable, innovative shop i hadever seen; with a sign at the front

door saying, sorry, after five years we are closing our boutique. it was a concept boutique

focused on products related to "royalty" and included almost anything on that topic, e.g., stationery, kitchenware, furniture, ceremonial clothes, books, letters and much more all authentic and collected from all over Europe. The owners of this boutique-shop were a retired married couple from Germany who had decided to settle in New Zealand. This was the breaking point for me, and I decided to assist them in advertising for free,' said Brigitte. I called Jackie and told her that I was completely in," and that we had our first client. I must admit that Jackie was very disappointed to find out later on that this was pro-bona work. They did a tremendous job and the boutique survived; via online advertising they reached clients from all different places in New Zealand and around the world who collected royalty-related products. They both gained experience and knowledge from their pro-bono work and understood that in order to succeed in the business this time, they needed to create their own apportunities. Brigitte started delivering presentations at the school where she worked on the need for advertising and its importance at the businesss startup stage for its rapid growth; she invited the students' parents and people from the community to several free presentations at the school, and started to promote the concept of their new business.

Jackie used a different strategy: the 'walk-in'. She visited entrepreneurs who had launched

businesses in the prior six months and presented them with the benefits of engaging in virtual

advertising at that point in time. Nine months after the launch of GetStarted, Brigitte gathered

all her friends and colleagues for a 'professional afternoon tea party' to collect their views and

feedback on GetStarted. She asked them to point out the potential constraints they perceived

that GetStarted could face and asked those who were already experienced in the entrepreneurial

path to describe their entrepreneurial evolution. Jackie made use of the 'devil's advocate' approach

by asking one member in each group to present all of the limitations of GetStarted, while the

others had to think of solutions to minimize those limitations. The afternoon was a great success

and has since been adopted by many other entrepreneurs. On the firm's third anniversary, GetStarted clients received a virtual cake with the number 3 on it and a voucher for free coffee and cake at a well-known coffee-shop chain in New Zealand. Brigitte and Jackie are very proud of their achievements and are developing other strategies to assist their clients in exposing their competitive advantages right from the start.

THE PROCESS-ORIENTED PERSPECTIVE

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Identify the opportunity-recognition process Brigitte and Jackie conducted for GetStarted; explain its differences from the "typical model" of opportunity recognition.

2. 1s there any connection between Brigitte's and Jackie's career paths and their individual opportunity-recognition processes? Explain the differences between the two in choosing the strategies of opportunity recognition in light of their previous career experience.

3. What is the nature of the opportunity-evaluation process conducted by Brigitte and Jackie? In your opinion, what are the benefits and limitations of such a process for the business's growth?

4. Would you suggest a different opportunity-evaluation process for GetStarted? Explain.

5. of the five major attributes relevant to opportunity exploitation-creativity, securing, expanding, exposing, and challenging-which do you consider most dominant in the case of Getstarted Would you recommend emphasizing other attributes as well? Explain.