Forrest and Trees

Several years ago, I watched a show about entrepreneurs.   on this show entrepreneurs showed their products to experienced VC and investor type people and potentially got funded.  Kind of an early take on Shark tank, but more involved in the process, not just the pitch.

One of these entrepreneurs had developed a window garden type of product, and they thought everyone would want one,  great idea, and they had a patent on the special soil it used.  this soil made evaporation a near non existent issue, water the plant once a month and it would continue to grow and thrive.

this caught the VC's eye, or should I say ear.  he started drilling on the soil.  the entrepreneurs were confused, wasn't the planter beautiful? how could he not see the appeal?

The entrepreneurs were actually the ones with a vision issue.  What the VC saw was that their soil idea was worth billions.  developing countries could use the product to enrich soil and fend off the massive erosion and evaporation issues they were facing.  He tried to explain this to the entrepreneurs with no success.  they rebuffed his suggestion.

this is a classic case of not being able to see the forest through the trees.  the entrepreneurs could see a single application that they were emotionally attached to.  They were also wearing blinders to the other opportunities.

When evaluating and business idea, expand your horizons.  especially today, in the age of big data.  I firmly believe that one of the big reasons for SaaS is that data aggregation reveals trends, and you cant aggregate from an untouched desktop.

look at the data being collected, and think about what else you could derive from that data, this is your real product, and your most long lasting. make the core product very cheap, but very useful.  Aggregate the data, repackage, and sell.  make it a subscription service for the customers to predict meaningful events based on the aggregation. Also think of the governing bodies and how they could participate in the process.

Look past the trees, and see what your aggregate forest can be.