For many new entrepreneurs, the first and perhaps most significant challenge is not concerning capital or infrastructure but rather, the lack of belief in their ideas. You would find people saying that their business ideas are ‘not special or innovative enough to become successful.’ Of course, this is the case because business gurus preach the need to build something precisely unique - and almost paint less disruptive businesses as nonexistent. But we have a different story to tell, with many solid points behind it. 

Proof Your Idea Doesn’t Have To Be Unique

Self-doubt has a very strong grip on its victims. Therefore, we don’t expect that you’ll be immediately convinced by reading that introductory piece. The encouragement you need might, instead, come from the true stories of regular ideas that blew out of proportion - and we must say that there are lots of those. Take a look at some below:

TikTok

Our first example of a regular but successful business is TikTok. TikTok is a short-form video-hosting social media platform launched in 2016. Before the company came to be, there was YouTube and Instagram. These were - and are still - the two major competitors as long as video-supporting platforms are the topic of discussion, but their existence and success did not deter TikTok from coming onto the scene. 

Today, the results are glaring as TikTok has grown to become the most popular video platform with over 1.7 billion users in 2023 and with revenue worth  $2.475 billion.   All of this comes out of years of dead-on commitment from the company. TikTok has rolled out several interesting features including text posts, TikTok shops, and more and more - partly accounting for its increased valuation and unmatched growth. 

Facebook

Billionaire and serial entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004. At the time, WeChat, Twitter, and xxx were already thriving. The company still took hold of its little spot in the industry and began growing from there. Its success has been unimaginable. Not only has the company stayed afloat for nearly two decades, but it has also experienced more than 1,154% growth in users and generated over $32 billion in revenue as of June 2023. 

It is important to note that Facebook started out having lots of competition but it has built a culture of improvement and big, bold involvements. The company has created partnerships, sponsored innovative programs, and spent billions of dollars on innovative technologies such as the metaverse - all while including its special touch. 

Why The World Needs Your Regular Idea 

All over the world, there are hundreds or even thousands of eerily similar small businesses. They run at the same time and many of them are located in close proximity to each other - for example, a food or clothes market with several different vendors clustered together. Regardless of the competition, businesses of this nature still rake in thousands or millions in revenue. 

And what makes these kinds of businesses work? The answer is variety. Customers have always been found to enjoy having variety and the power of choice. To them, this creates a kind of challenge - and if it’s exciting yet mild and not too difficult, then it becomes good stimulation. 

On a personal level, try to remember the small business you patronized recently. Now, ask yourself, what was it that drew you to that particular business and what exactly prompted your purchase. What made the business unique? 

We believe it could have been a tweak: the very backbone of variety, something as little as the complimentary note that came along with your order, the intentionality of a front desk officer, or the seasoning or taste of their food - or as big as the artistic furniture and decoration. 

This makes three reasons why the world needs your business even if it doesn’t exactly have a disruptive idea. First is that it could create employment opportunities - with reasonable revenue following. Second is that it could give customers the kind of stimulation they crave through the ingredient of variety. Lastly - and this one is an out-of-the-box opinion - your regular business could create the background for an exciting and disruptive new idea. 

How To Build Your Brand Without A Disruptive Idea

On the way to building something less disruptive but still profitable and interesting, you would need three elements in play; personal vision, the right niche, and a unique value proposition. 

Personal Vision:

Dreams, directions, and values make up a personal vision. You’re going to be needing this from the get-go. What you will require, precisely, is a list or some form of writing that outlines your values or virtues, mentions the short and long-term goals that will create your dreams, and dictates the direction of this vision by answering the “whens” and “hows”.

Outlining your vision in this way is super important. It keeps you and your founding employees on track all day of the week and every week of the year. Moreover, new hires can easily come up to speed with the company’s roadmap, improving their onboarding and time to productivity. 

Another super duper benefit of having a clear business vision is that it serves as a point of reference. If you like, this could be the script that the actors and major players in your business could turn to when they’re not sure what decisions to make. 

For more efficiency, you have to be sure that there is express clarity to everything on your list. Leave no room for vague points or statements and offer details and personal perspectives where necessary.

The Right Niche:

There is something like being in the right niche. Unfortunately, several entrepreneurs are not aware of what this is in relation to their businesses, while many others simply fail at choosing rightly. 

A business in the right niche would have long determined who their target customers are and be doing the right things to attract and keep them. The process of making this discovery involves:

• Quality Customer Interaction

Interaction talks about how well you understand and relate with potential customers. It includes getting to know what interests them and being in a position where you can communicate with them and they too can easily make compliments, express their grievances or complaints, and even share their success stories (perhaps through a survey). 

The quality of interaction between a business and its consumer is more important than many of us imagined. Sound interactions translate to sound customer experiences. According to our article on recent research by PricewaterhouseCoopers,  (*hyperlink article on experience being better than price or quality), customers prefer to have really satisfying experiences than to be swayed by low prices or high product quality. 

Lots of other positive things ripple out of good, solid communication. For example, it becomes easier for businesses to receive product improvement suggestions for free.

• Researching on a Potential Market

Business is never about jumping to conclusions. Founders who fail to realise this often end up breaking the bank and in fact, breaking their business confidence and self-esteem too. The cure is in conducting sound, broad, and in-depth research. Due diligence in terms of in-depth business research helps to plug the holes in any given idea. 

For a non-disruptive idea, research could bridge the wide gap between failure and success by revealing competitor strategies, identifying opportunities for growth and improvement, and helping to maintain a customer-focused approach. 

Unique and Well-defined Value Proposition:

A Unique Value Proposition is the spice in your own idea. Think of it like the process of cooking a popular local dish, which you’ve prepared for several years growing up. In many cases, making this one dish over and over again would have inspired you to indulge in some personal tweaks, for example, by adjusting the cooking time, using some new ingredients or seasoning, or utilizing a slightly different cooking method. 

Your personalized way of preparing the dish in question will pass for a Unique Value Proposition - if it were a business. It might not be a simple tweak but it doesn’t always have to be a huge switch from the usual. 

Conclusion 

While many entrepreneurs may believe that “everything that can be invented has been invented” as far as business is concerned, this article proves that you don’t even need an original idea. More than 50 percent of businesses would most likely be replicas of already existing ideas. Nevertheless, success is still very much a possibility. 

Countless businesses that now have huge valuations, droves of loyal customers, and really impressive branding, all started as small and regular outfits with thousands of competitors. Names like TikTok, Facebook, and Uber drive the narrative today, but with some consistency and a touch of creativity, your business could also be on the leaderboard. 

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ALSO READ: PERCEIVED QUALITY: HOW BRANDING MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE

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