What does everyone know that I don’t?

I recently discovered the Ozganics grocery line -yummy yummy organic foods and sauces - and the story behind the business.

The founder Anni Brownjohn literally stumbled over a jar of American organic jam in her local Aussie supermarket. Because she thought it was complete madness that this stuff was being imported from half way round the globe she started a business producing an Australian version.

It was a lot tougher than she thought.

The ingredients were hard to find and extraordinarily expensive, and to top it off Australian’s weren’t even that bothered about buying organic food stuffs! (I should point out that Aussies aren’t complete philistines - this was a good ten years ago).

Even though the business is now a great success Anni says that she wouldn’t have started the business if she had known the difficulties ahead.

My nibble is this. Sometimes spotting a gap in the market can be an opportunity that is too good to be true. Being a pioneer is both expensive and exhausting. Maybe the reason that there isn’t a local presence in your market is that your would-be competitors are waiting for someone like you to come in and break the ground so that they can then glide in.