It’s 2018, yet we still remember Roger Bannister as the first person to run a mile in under 4 minutes.
Apple became the world’s most valuable company, largely because of profits from the iPhone; the world’s first smart phone. (Here’s the original iPhone press release.)
There are 2 useful lessons here:
- When you are the first to do something, it’s remembered for a very long time. We remember Bannister, even though Australia’s John Landy broke Bannister’s record just 6 weeks later. Landy was faster, yet remained relatively unknown because he wasn’t the first person to go sub 4 minutes.
- It doesn’t have to be perfect. The first iPhone was really buggy. It even lacked a basic copy and paste facility for over a year! However, it was extremely useful.
This begs the question
What product or service could you be the first to create for your marketplace?
Fortunately, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. For example, a service which is common in another industry may be unheard of in yours. It just needs to be new to your industry, profession or marketplace.
And it absolutely doesn’t need to be perfect. It needs to be useful.