There’s a great business metaphor featured in the book Blue Oceans Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne.
The gist is: Find “Blue Oceans” to operate a business in, free from competition. Avoid the bloody “Red Oceans” where everyone is fighting it out.
As you develop business ideas and markets, keep this in mind. The best and easiest thing to do is: don’t do what everyone else is doing. Don’t just copy an idea because someone else is doing it. Find that Blue Ocean.
Most wantapreneurs don’t have original ideas. They copy someone else. They copy their web page. They copy their marketing. There are 2 problems here; one, they are most likely copying someone else’s failed attempts, and 2; they’ve just entered the Red Ocean!!
When I look back, I was well served by going my own way. One, I was doing things I felt passion for, that I felt weren’t being served by the marketplace. And Two, when I got established, I didn’t have much competition to speak of.
The best ways I can suggest is find your niche and DIG DEEP. Really define that niche. Don’t try to be all things to all people.
Like, even with this blog, I write for this person: A new entrepreneur, solo (or small business), creating something new, bootstrapped with little money. Those people will find maximum value here, and I don’t care about the rest, they are better served elsewhere.
Previously, I pushed music no one had ever heard of before. Later, I did hypnosis shows for markets I targeted specific solutions for. And more recently I created software for a very small niche, in the internet world.
When you find that niche and serve it, that market will know you are really speaking to them. It will also make it harder for competition to come along.
Often when I established myself, I realized I had no real competition to speak of. I had an entire Blue Ocean to myself.
