Too Late to Start the Business You Dreamed Of?
CAREER & BUSINESS
Surely, by now, everyone has started up something: a start-up company, a Youtube channel, a wedding photography/videography business, a life-coaching service, fitness consulting, how-to-keep-your-dog-happy advice columns, whatever. The question is, with all these “companies” popping up out of thin air, is it too late to start whatever it is you wanted to start? The answer is yes.
That’s encouraging, right? Actually, yeah, it is.
If you haven’t started, it’s too late. It’s too late because you haven’t, not because it’s too late TO START. In fact, there’s literally been no better time in the history of our modern world to start your business. Sure, the market is oversaturated. Yes, social media is drowning in lifestyle pictures and videos of people making their own schedule and living how they’ve dreamed. Absolutely, Youtube is full of folks giving advice on how to start up “your dream”. It seems like a lost cause. But it’s all about perspective. Like a flat-earther’s argument. Ha.
Consider this with me, say you and your significant other want to go out for a nice dinner. As is typical, neither one can decide what you two as a couple want. Chinese? They don’t want that. A burger? Nah, you’re not in the mood. Where then? Oh! That new steakhouse on the corner of Cool and Classy. Yeah! That’s the one. But as you arrive, you park and notice, there’s no other cars. Are they open? Mmhmm, yep, open until 11pm. Great hours, the place looks nice but there are no patrons. Great! There won’t be a wait — but it’s Friday night. There’s always a wait at the good places. Read it again — there’s always a wait at the good places.
Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash
Thus, the question begins to arise that if there’s always a wait at the good places, why is it so dead here?
This dilemma can be solved by one of two answers:
No one has heard of it because their marketing sucks
The product sucks
That’s it.
What will you choose to do? Most likely, you’ll go elsewhere. You’ll chance a wait at one of the good places because you know it’s good. It may be super crowded, it may take a little bit longer to get inside, to get seated and to have a great meal, but it’ll be worth it, right?
This is the simplest application I can articulate when it comes to starting your own company in 2019. Or heck, maybe not even your own company. Maybe you’re just wanting to start a Youtube channel dedicated to makeup or photography or cooking or knitting sweaters for Schnauzers…whatever.
While it is important to niche down your company — that is, really take time to figure out in a detailed manner who your client will be — it’s also important to find a spot (illustrated above as a restaurant) that offers clients.
No market is “oversaturated” if you can put your own spin and your personality, passion and love for it into that product. How many freakin’ burger joints are there now? How about pizza? One walk down Madison Avenue in New York City and you’ll see there are probably fifteen pizza places within a 5 mile stretch. And they’re all still open. Think the pizza market is oversaturated? Every one of those pie houses does it a little different and people buy.
What I’m trying to say is: if it seems oversaturated, that’s good. There’s a piece of the pie for you in it. Stop letting other people take your piece. Stop letting the fear of over-saturation keep you from being your own boss and going for that thing you’ve always wanted to go for.
I love that the Youtube niche of filmmaking is so saturated. If the audience will watch channel a and channel b about filmmaking, once I put in the time and effort, they’ll also watch my channel c alongside those two. It’s about that wait in line, it’s about patience.
The more saturated a market is the longer it’ll take to build the brand up but the more rewarding it will become. You’ll have small successes and small failures at first. That’s okay. Everyone did and everyone does. And the bigger you get, the bigger the successes but the bigger the failures. Everything is based on perspective and it’s all scalable.
If you’re reading this and you have that lingering business idea in the back of your head, saying, “You’re an entrepreneur at heart”, — freakin’ go for it!
Find your niche. Determine exactly who you want to market to and get your product/service out there. Don’t stop by the empty spots. Who will ever find you? Go for that busy restaurant. Enjoy the wait. Let the wait help you hone your service and clients.
And when that table becomes available, well, it’s all yours. It’s never too late to start. Unless you’re just not starting.