There are big opportunities in the blank parts of the map, but we only remember the very few survivors. People rarely know they need the new product (remember the apocryphal Henry Ford quote: "If I asked people what they want they'd say a faster horse").
A friend of mine who is a VC told me years ago, "I only get to meet crazy people: either they have a completely new product, and so will run out of runway before they manage to get the plane airborne, or they are going into an existing market, where the incumbents will crush the aircraft before it gets enough speed to leave the ground." Despite the amusing language it was a useful perspective.
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There are big opportunities in the blank parts of the map, but we only remember the very few survivors. People rarely know they need the new product (remember the apocryphal Henry Ford quote: "If I asked people what they want they'd say a faster horse").
A friend of mine who is a VC told me years ago, "I only get to meet crazy people: either they have a completely new product, and so will run out of runway before they manage to get the plane airborne, or they are going into an existing market, where the incumbents will crush the aircraft before it gets enough speed to leave the ground." Despite the amusing language it was a useful perspective.