Ingredient 5. Find the Sweet Spot

101 Design Ingredients to Solve Big Tech Problems — by Eewei Chen (13 / 125)

👈 Know What You Control | TOC | Connect the Dots 👉

Work on things that end up in the middle.

“Ability is nothing without opportunity.”

— Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France 1804–1815

The Problem

Companies struggle to come up with the next Facebook, Twitter, or Google but fail to realize these companies didn’t try to be like anyone else.

The Solution

Look at changes in technology, human psychology, and economics to create opportunities to try something new.

• Stay informed. Up-to-date resources in the form of papers, websites, blogs, books, seminars, competitor analyses, trend reports, and trade shows are abundant. I attend events and absorb RSS feeds that align with my professional interests, always looking for new opportunities, especially ones the competition has overlooked.[14]
• Be curious and open-minded. Don’t be set in your own ways; instead, put your beliefs aside and observe the world with an untainted perspective. I look for what other people are interested in and ask “why” and “what if” when I challenge my…