Opportunity is in the Gaps

Many people have a slightly better mousetrap and are convinced that the world will beat a path to their door based on the ingenious application of effort to create it. As most people with some added experience are aware, there is so much more to creating success by simply making something better, more efficient, cheaper, etc.

The opportunity for your particular effort is to find not just what to make or do, but, where to bring that item or service that will actually fill a VOID that is not currently being addressed in the marketplace. Opportunity in business comes from doing something, a service or product, that others are NOT already doing and then communicating why your new effort is the better choice. It is in fact an entire effort of education.

When mobile phones first arrived, they were large and often wired into a car. The market was very small for the clunky, tethered outcome and virtually all were paid for exclusively by company expense accounts.

When AirBnB first introduced online rentals of rooms, it was a difficult proposition for most to understand. There were many naysayers who were convinced the service would never get off the ground.

Both of these examples, far from identical, had significant difficulty gathering momentum. Each had the wind of technological advancement at their back, mobile phones being satellite deployments and personal rentals being trust by both buyers and sellers.

However, both were not really as new as they seem. Mobile phones are an enhancement to landline phones, which existed. People have been renting out rooms to others for a fee for centuries. Both these business models revisited what might be a little beyond what is currently possible to begin to deliver a new expectation to consumers that would eventually grow.

Take a look inside your business or yourself and look hard at how you can take your particular uniqueness and offer it somewhere not being offered. Make it special to a community of potential followers in a way no other competitors have thus far. Make it appear as an EVOLUTION, not a REVOLUTION, and you have a very high likelihood you will gain traction. Few people join a revolution, but, lots of people will jump on a bandwagon. Be the bandwagon of forward progress in whatever niche you can. Then own it like it was yours all along. There is your opportunity.