Disrupting Your Niche Is A Good Thing!

In today’s world, disruption is the name of the game. There are many companies who are perfect example to showcase why disruption works and there are just about the same amount who prove that disruption isn’t always pretty once you get down to the nitty gritty. For all of my entrepreneurs our there or people who stumbled across this post, let me set the mood of this article and it’s with the following:

“It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”

Now that I have set the mood, here are three things that you need to know about disrupting your niche.

Your idea doesn’t have to be special or unique for you to execute on it

There seems to be a common misconception that products need to be unique or special in order to make an impact on people. The truth is that there are hundreds, if not, thousands of products that do the same thing. The things that makes your product different is how well you are able to execute on the message you want your users to receive. For example, Dropbox and Box are similar products to one another, but there are a ton of people who will vouch for Dropbox over Box because there are a lot more people willing to invest money in storing their files with one over the other. Another reason might be that unlike Dropbox, Box tailors to a different set of users and is more intimate with who they do business with, hence the difference in marketing of the product and the awareness behind each product’s message. At this point in time, it seems like Dropbox is doing everything right and is retaining a lot more money than it is shelling out while Box is still working on making its product better and more appealing to the users that are already on the platform. At this point, there is no clear winner and I am merely stating my opinions on the matter and will continue to explore each product with an open mind.

Scaling Fast vs Not Scaling Fast Enough

Unlike a couple of years ago, failing is no longer frowned upon and it has created what I like to call a “bubble” where companies and institutions of all sizes are free to create whatever the they want, when they want to create it. While the primary reason behind the trend is hard to pinpoint, the fact of the matter is that people aren’t as tight with their money, which enables people with ideas to go in asking for X amount of money with little to no downside for both parties. In these cases, the worse case scenario is that the product or service doesn’t appeal to enough people and growth stagnates, eventually burning through the investment money that was accumulated. On the other hand, the product can scale massively and grow to the point where the investor gets a return on their investment, making them money in the process. Unfortunately, the latter is happening where money is being thrown around like nobody’s business, creating an ecosystem that many entrepreneurs can’t come back from. If you are going to scale a company, put some contingencies in place should your product or service not work and cause a domino effect where you have to give back the money you borrowed with interest.

Am I responsible for everything that has happened?

Yes, you are responsible for what happens in your own company and the truth is that many entrepreneurs aren’t aware of the fact that they might just be the reason their company is failing. If you are a entrepreneur reading this post, know that I will get a little salty for a minute because I am interested in helping you grow to become a better and more knowledgeable CEO one day.

Here goes nothing…

There are way too many entrepreneurs out there who have the “best” ideas but are horrible at relaying why people should care about what they have to offer. As an aspiring entrepreneur, I’ve gone through the phase of thinking that I know my idea in and out and there is nobody more knowledgeable than I am in terms of growing my idea to be a massive hit in the future. Unfortunately, there were many instances where that thinking put me in a place of zoning everyone I cared about out of the equation and focused solely on keeping my company alive. The fallacy with this approach is that I was so focused on scaling and growing exponentially, that I didn’t notice the red flags that were staring me right in the face. That’s right, I failed several times with a great idea because I was too invested in the idea of knowing everything and forgot to ask the people around me for help on resolving the issues with a fresh set of eyes. Now that I’ve put the vibe out there, I will shift the focus to you: the entrepreneur or decision maker for things to come.

Conclusion

You can never have too much help on the matter that you are trying to resolve. Put your ego aside and listen to what your people are saying because it’s going to help you and your company grow faster than if you were to do it alone in the first place. This doesn’t mean that you have to consider every piece of advice that comes your way, but you will learn to parse out the most important information that better relates to the issue that you are trying to solve. The execution piece comes later, don’t worry.

In conclusion, theses are the three things that you can do to truly disrupt your niche as an entrepreneur. If you are feeling a little bit more courageous, feel free to take a look at the other posts that are available on the White Wolves page.

Until then, don’t stop being a wolf and disrupting the world with your ideas!