Golden opportunities for silver innovation: How demographic changes give rise to entrepreneurial opportunities to meet the needs of older people

•We investigate the opportunities arising from demographic changes.•We discuss the product development process for solutions targeting older people.•We analyze opportunity identification and exploitation in the "silver" market.•We show six different approaches addressing specific needs of older people.•We expand the context of opportunity recognition beyond the individual level.

This paper deals with the recognition and exploitation of opportunities arising from demographic changes in the form of population aging. Moreover, it explores the product development process for solutions to meet the demand of the increasing number of older people due to the demographic shift. Using a qualitative approach, we analyze opportunity identification and exploitation in the “silver” market (i.e. the market targeting older people). We employ a multiple case analysis based on six different approaches to opportunity recognition and exploitation in the form of product innovations addressing specific needs of older people. Our cases present how firms in different industrial contexts and user settings tackle these needs. We contribute to the state-of-the-field in entrepreneurship and innovation management by providing insights on (a) opportunity recognition and exploitation in connection with demographic change, (b) innovation management and product development for older users, (c) the wider context of opportunity recognition beyond the individual level of the entrepreneur (i.e. the individual-opportunity nexus), and finally (d) the under-researched exploitation process subsequent to opportunity recognition.