Tell me about a time you identified a business opportunity or potential partnership on your own, before anyone asked you to look for it. What did you see, and what did you do about it?

Situation

During my internship at a tech startup, I noticed our customer base was heavily concentrated on small retail businesses, but our product could also serve medium-sized logistics firms.

Task

I needed to validate whether logistics companies would actually need our platform and then propose a concrete partnership pitch to my supervisor without being told to explore new segments.

Action

I spent two afternoons researching the top 10 logistics firms in Metro Manila, calling their procurement departments to ask about their current software pain points. I found that 7 out of 10 were frustrated with manual tracking and would welcome a digital solution. I then built a simple one-page proposal summarizing the market gap, potential revenue from an initial pilot with 3 firms, and an estimate of the partnership model that would appeal to them.

Result

My supervisor presented my proposal to our CEO, who approved a test pilot with two logistics companies. Within three months, that pilot generated PHP 120,000 in new recurring revenue and led to a formal partnership with one logistics association.