Don’t Go In There!

One of my favorite business myths is that going into any particular business, such as fast food, handbags, or online bookselling, is “a bad idea because there are already people who do that.” Actually, the worst thing to be is unique. If you are unique, nobody has ever thought of making, or therefore buying, your product or service.

The wonderful thing about competition is that it means that people already are buying what you want to sell. The challenge is not to come up with a radical idea but to come up with a better version of something people already know: a faster hamburger, a tastier hamburger, a hamburger made out of solid gold.

(OK, maybe not the last one. But who knows? Stranger things have been bought.) Don’t confuse your buyers by being unique, but like the classic Hollywood pitch, make sure people understand that you are selling, “Casablanca meets Weekend At Bernie’s.” It may be shallow, but they will understand—and if they understand, they might just buy. (Rick is dead, but in a hilarious comedy of errors, Ilsa must pretend he is still alive to make it out of Morocco—hey, I’d watch that.)