Visionaries are not mystics. They are merely men and women who have an insight that they communicate well. You too may be a visionary in the making.
But being a visionary never starts with a vision. It begins more humbly, with a simple observation. The old joke says that great discoveries are not launched with shouts of “Eureka!” but with a scientist muttering, “Well, that’s odd.” Likewise, your business vision begins when you ask “Why are people doing what they do?” This is the core of any business concept.
One definition of “insight” is “a deep understanding of a person or thing.” Many entrepreneurs launch their products and their companies after they have been involved in an industry for some time and see defects within it. A product idea arises because the entrepreneur sees people struggling, notes inefficiencies and detects a trend in demand. There is often an “Ah ha!” moment only when the inequities within a market show where a product or service could solve the problem.
This is entrepreneurial insight — the ability to grasp needs and devise solutions. But this is just an idea, and ideas by themselves are worth little. For such insights to become products, and products with market demand, many people have to understand the value. It requires transforming what is in the entrepreneur’s insight into something else.
Take the Old Testament story of the Promised Land. Getting an entire population to relocate to an unknown environment requires them to see…