Just recalled the story of a shoe manufacturer who “many years ago, sent two of his marketing graduates to the interior of Australia to see if they could come up with new product ideas for the undeveloped Aborigine market. The first one responded, ‘Nah, there’s no business there; the natives don’t wear shoes of any type.’ The second one was far more enthusiastic … ‘What a fantastic, perhaps even unprecedented opportunity … the natives haven’t even discovered shoes yet!'”
In a similar vein, someone — OK, I’ll admit it was my Dad — said to me recently, “As an entrepreneur, and someone who consults a lot of them, in this climate you must be frightfully concerned with just keeping momentum so you don’t fall through the ice.” Hard to argue with that, as it really serves no productive purpose to curl up in a ball and fret and whinge about it, now does it? (Ha.) More importantly, beyond that survival mode, entrepreneurs in this environment need to think with all five senses (or six or seven, if you have that Gift), to concurrently consider:
1. What you’ll do if the ice breaks [swim?].
2. What you’ll do next [pull yourself out, dry off and warm up (if you can)?].
3. What you’ll potentially discover in that life-threatening challenge that could hold an opportunity, a value prop, a blessing. What’s down there in the icy water? Maybe some fish for sushi? A unique bottled water product? A new meeting place for the Polar Bear Club? An inspiration for economically feasible desalination?
At the risk of sounding all preachy, let’s remain positive, diligent and open-minded. Let’s ensure that we stay connected with our like-minded peers. Let’s embrace the truth in that arguably tired old adage that “challenges are opportunities” and skate some figure eights on the thin ice that lies beyond the warning signs, ever-confident that if we fall on our faces we might just discover the next big (or fantastically small) thing.
Posted by: Colin Mangham