Please evaluate first essay

[JaiBalaji]

Issue - "Secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows." Discuss how...........

My essay is as follows. Please evaluate. I would like to know if I have gone into a slight tangent by extrapolating the issue to "successful" business instead of focussing only on business.

Secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows. While this may be true to certain types of business, it is not universally applicable. I agree that there are certain types of business that are purely driven and are successful because the founder invented a product or service that was not being offered before. This however, does not support the view that the product or service was not known to exist. I would present some examples to support my position that opposes the generalistic view presented by the statement.

For certain businesses that deal with innovation, the secret does indeed lie in discovering what was previously unknown. Take the example of hotmail.com. The free web based email service offered by hotmail.com was first of its kind. Sabeer Bhatia, the founder of hotmail.com, created a business out of a concept that was completely new and built a successful business that was sold for 330 million dollars to Microsoft, 10 years after its launch.

However, not all businesses that start offering something that was not known to anyone else, are successful. For instance, thousands of entrepreneurs who jumped onto the dot com bandwagon were not as successful as hotmail. For a business to be successful, the product or the service should be targeted to a consumer, should have a demand and a market. It is not just the uniqueness of product that makes a business successful; a successful business requires a solid business strategy, a sound financial backing and most importantly a business team who has the business acumen to make the business successful.

On the other hand, just the knowledge of something does not lead to a successful business. There are a number of individuals across the world who either discover something new or have ideas that can revolutionalize the world and can make successful businesses. Unfortunately, many such individuals do not have the business acumen or financial backing necessary to further develop their ideas or products to transform into successful business.

Businesses can also be successful, if they deal in products or services which have ongoing demand or are in short supply in a particular geography. For example, hotels, restaurants or business related to tourism at a tourist attraction. The secret that the location is a tourist place is well known the entrepreneurs. But, it is the ever increasing demand during the tourist season that keeps many a business successful, not the unique knowledge of a well known fact.

Therefore, I would like to conclude that although there are certain businesses that will succeed purely based on knowing something that nobody else does, this rule does not apply to all successful businesses. There are a number of other factors that influence and determine the success of a business in addition to unique knowledge.

[JaiBalaji]

Dear Friends

I am appearing in the exam in 10 days. I would highly appreciate an evaluation of my essay so that I can make necessary improvements. Kindly rate.