Compete Without Competing
“The reason why men who mind their own business succeed is that they have so little competition.“”
When I first started out, I read hundreds of books. After all, I’m a college drop out and I had to get that education from somewhere. Many of the books I read had a positive effect on me but one particular book that stood out was “Blue Ocean Strategy” by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne. As the book told, most businesses do battle in a red ocean market (a market filled with competition) but the business that can carve out a unique niche by solving an unsolvable issue or creating a new market were the adopters of a blue ocean strategy. It made an impression on me. It seemed like the route an intelligent tactician would take. It’s a concept I’ve chased since I began my business and it’s not an easy animal to catch.
Not sure what I mean? Luckily, a business who has created their own Blue Ocean Strategy has just surfaced once again. It’s an airline, but one you’ve never come across before. This airline provides one sort of service. The way it works is the consumer pays a monthly fee of $1350.00 for the ability to fly an unlimited amount of times. Not only do you get to fly as you please, you get a small plane with much of the amenities flying private offers including larger seats, better service, fewer passengers and the ability to drive right up to the plane with a minuscule security line. They’re the only one of their kind in the airline industry and they will be for long enough. They’ll have months if not years to hone their niche, to find new solutions, solve unique problems and offer even more services. By the time competition comes in, they’ll have far too much to catch up on.
Will you eventually have competition? Sure, but you’ve limited the amount of people who are capable of competing with you. You’ve bought yourself time to be alone in an industry and it’ll be you who innovates. It is far more of an achievement to find a solution to an unresolved issue then to jump into a saturated market. Trust me, I know, because my company did the latter and it was hell. I can easily say that nearly all we’ve accomplished was through sheer force of will.
So to all the young entrepreneurs looking to build something new for themselves in a saturated market. Think outisde the box, solve an unsolvable issue, answer a question everyone’s dismissed as unanswerable, carve out a new niche and then spend countless hours beating on your craft. Make sure that by the time competition does enter your blue ocean, they’re terrified at the work needed to catch up.
