Keeping Your Eye on the Market
For young entrepreneurs keeping your eye on the market is extremely important. There’s nothing worse than pitching, what you think is an awesome idea, only to find out someone else has already been there, done that - let’s just hope you find that out before your prospective client. Despite your greatest research efforts, there will be a time when one will slip through the net, especially if you are pitching numerous ideas covering different industries. On the plus side, even if you do accidentally re-create something it does verify that you are on the right track. That you identified a market need, you were just a little late in executing it.
I did it myself not so long ago having pitched a book called, ‘50 Jobs that Suck Worse Than Yours’ with spin offs including ‘50 Dinners that Suck Worse Than Yours’, ‘50 Dates that Suck Worse Than Yours’ ect. The publisher who I pitched it to (in Australia) wasn’t sure that it would work. I was sure there would be a market for it and did the subsequent research to back it up. You can imagine my alarm when I walked into an art’s supplies shop in Manhattan two weeks later and stumbled upon ‘50 Dates Worse Than Yours’ and the subsequent series of 50 of’s…..
I honestly had never seen the books. Not even subconsciously in a catalogue. Now, there was nothing to stop me from pitching ‘49 Jobs that Suck Worse Than Yours’ or a subsequent series. The titles were slightly different and the content would have had a different flavor. But personally, I didn’t find it particularly ethical. If we had gone ahead and already published the books that would have been a different story but now that I knew I couldn’t go ahead in good faith.
Needless to say, I revoked the proposal but was happy that I was on the right track. Knowing your market is imperative. Walking around shops, checking out new products should be as much a part of your weekly schedule as sending emails and answering the phone.
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