You’re first to market. You have no competition. Now why is it so quiet in here?

The funny thing about introducing a new product or company in a space that is completely empty is that it might be empty for a reason. When you are the first to market, you have either set yourself up to succeed in a big way because the competition is too late and you get the benefit of the entire consumer market, or you set yourself up to fail in a big way because no market exists for your products.

When Apple released the first personal computers to the world in 1984, at a time when many intelligent businessmen said that there was no market for them. Apple themselves had released a different version of the personal computer a year earlier which fell flat on it’s back.

They were taking a chance that consumers would see the value in this product that had never been offered before, a product that Apple strongly believed in despite all of their competitors feeling the opposite way.

The rest, as they say, is history.

But that is a story of success, and this is a post about caution.

Just because you have something that nobody else has, does not mean it’s a good idea. Be careful when trying to invent the market for something, and make sure the gamble is worth your efforts.