He combined two trends and created a third

THE PRINCIPLE

You can create a new business by combining trends

Trend 1: Food enriched with vitamins and minerals

Trend 2: People willing to spend more money on their pets

Marco Giannini spotted these trends and figured out a way to combine them. His product is Dogswell, dog treats infused with nutrients to help pets stay healthy. In 2004 he invested $30,000 (about £20,000) of his own money to produce the first lorry-load of sample treats and took them around to 200 independent pet stores in California.

The orders came rolling in and he grossed about £338,000 in sales his first year. Four years later he had sales of £10.8 million. That’s a lot of treats. Next: Catswell.

Michael Sands, co-founder of Lesser-Evil Brand Snack Company, did something similar, this time reconciling two directly opposed trends.

Trend 1: People love to eat snack foods

Trend 2: People want to cut back on junk foods

His solution was to provide snacks with all the sinful flavours of junk food, but without so many of the preservatives and high-calorie ingredients. The company’s motto is ‘Stop bad snacking!’ It addressed both trends, and as a result reached annual sales of more than $1.4 million (about £1 million) in only three years.

Most people who pay attention to trends try to take advantage of only one, and therefore face a lot of competition. If you can find a way to combine two, as Giannini and Sands did, you are more likely to come up with a product or service that is unique.

image

..................Content has been hidden....................

You can't read the all page of ebook, please click here login for view all page.
Reset
3.89.56.228