Something has been bothering me a little. Most of us seem to believe that to become successful in business we must think in terms of what the people want or need, or in other words, what the market demands.
But, while I continue to agree with that I'm beginning to think that it's not necessarily the only core thing to be concerned about. If it was really ALL about meeting demand then what about all of the innovations that happen which resolve problems which either weren't obvious to most people or weren't even problems in the first place, but the innovation simply made something more convenient, more fun or in any other way at least slightly better, and people actually adopted it.
If business people thought ONLY in terms of what the market demands TODAY, something tells me they wouldn't do a lot of what they're doing. We tend to brainstorm, be creative and come up with projects which are hard to classify in any particular category of demand, but we still believe they might have a chance.
Some would call it creating demand which doesn't actually yet exist. So maybe when talking about demand we should talk about both meeting demand and creating demand instead of only the former.
I understand that it's bad to think of only doing what you'd love to do regardless of whether it would actually serve anyone or not, like PhxMJ pointed out so I believe that we should think of BOTH what we want or are best at doing and of how will it serve others, but the "serving others" part apparently has two modes of operation. Serving an existing need or desire or discovering/creating a new one.
What do you think?
But, while I continue to agree with that I'm beginning to think that it's not necessarily the only core thing to be concerned about. If it was really ALL about meeting demand then what about all of the innovations that happen which resolve problems which either weren't obvious to most people or weren't even problems in the first place, but the innovation simply made something more convenient, more fun or in any other way at least slightly better, and people actually adopted it.
If business people thought ONLY in terms of what the market demands TODAY, something tells me they wouldn't do a lot of what they're doing. We tend to brainstorm, be creative and come up with projects which are hard to classify in any particular category of demand, but we still believe they might have a chance.
Some would call it creating demand which doesn't actually yet exist. So maybe when talking about demand we should talk about both meeting demand and creating demand instead of only the former.
I understand that it's bad to think of only doing what you'd love to do regardless of whether it would actually serve anyone or not, like PhxMJ pointed out so I believe that we should think of BOTH what we want or are best at doing and of how will it serve others, but the "serving others" part apparently has two modes of operation. Serving an existing need or desire or discovering/creating a new one.
What do you think?
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