Altprofits

Conventional business

Cleantech business

Conventional businesses will be mostly of product improvements

Cleantech business may also be of product improvements, but chances of new products/ product innovation may be much higher

Many players

Small number of players – chances of success are more – you can have first mover advantage and disadvantage also

Not much of government issues

Local government must support/ endorse the causing technology

Not much of technological changes

Constantly evolving

More existing market information is available

Since the field you are venturing might be new, existing market information might be less – so invest more in R&D

Easy to estimate market size by taking comparisons from existing players

Difficult to estimate market size – there are stories of IBM chief and Bill Gates making wrong market estimations

Socio-cultural considerations don’t play a major role here

Socio-cultural considerations and historical issues - It's not easy for companies to introduce clean technology products and services in a region where culture, language and thousands of years of tradition make access difficult.

Set government and regulatory concerns

Unique and evolving government and regulatory concerns

Government incentives are not available

Government support and incentives are not available

End consumer characteristics can be ascertained

End consumer characteristics cannot be ascertained easily

Probability of entrants may be only those already in field (invertors)

Probability of entrants may be those already in field  - chances of outsiders are not less

Higher chances of legal issues and barriers

Importance of patents and IPR protection