Abstract:It is important and difficult for research that how entrepreneurs identify innovative opportunities. From cognitive perspective scholars begins to examine the role of entrepreneurs" way of thinking in identifying opportunities. Counterfactual thinking is based on the reflection of the anomalous or unique phenomena in reality, and negates to construct various possible hypotheses. In the process of opportunity identification, entrepreneurs test and test different chains of causal logic through counterfactual thinking, by breaking the existing "mean-ends" relational framework and constructing alternative solutions to help entrepreneurs evaluate and identify innovative opportunities. Based the case of YeXing Anime and 3D Painting, the study analyzed that how counterfactual thinking is activated, constructed and evaluated in the process of opportunity identification. Especially the study try to find out what type of counterfactual thinking for entrepreneurs to better and faster identify innovative opportunities.