Your biggest competitor is doing nothing

Most businesses can tell you why their product is better than the competition. They'll talk about features, experience, technology, price or performance. They'll commission research, benchmark competitors and build a business case around the size of the opportunity.

But the biggest obstacle to growth usually sits outside that analysis. It's whatever customers are doing today.

That might be sticking with a familiar brand, juggling three apps to do what one could handle, putting up with a frustrating experience, or doing nothing at all because they don't have time to think about it.

Michael Skok has a useful way of looking at this. The problems most worth solving tend to be urgent, unavoidable, unworkable or underserved. And when switching involves significant effort or risk, the gain needs to be substantially greater than the pain of changing.

Being a bit better is rarely enough.

The stakes change the decision

It depends on what you're asking people to buy. You might happily spend £50 on trainers from a brand you've never tried because you like the look of them. The risk is low and the upside is obvious.

Buying a car from an unfamiliar manufacturer is a different matter. Now you're thinking about reliability, safety, servicing and resale value. You want reviews, recommendations and some reassurance that other people have made the same choice and not regretted it.

The bigger the commitment, the more confidence people need. That's where brand matters.

A strong brand carries much of that confidence. It gives people a reason to trust something before they've tried it. It can create desire, signal identity and make a product worth choosing even when there's no urgent problem to solve. It's why an established brand can launch something new with an immediate advantage, while an unknown challenger has to work much harder for the same consideration.

Brand is often the difference between someone being interested and being willing to buy.

Design the path to adoption

Businesses tend to put enormous effort into designing the product and very little into understanding what would make people choose it. They build something better, launch it and assume the benefits will speak for themselves.

But the real opportunity may lie in making the decision easier.

That could be a simpler way to try the product, a trade-in offer, a different pricing model, or an experience that proves its value before asking for a big commitment. It could be credibility built through customer advocacy, a brand people want to be associated with, or a new route to an audience that has never considered the category.

These are all design decisions. They shape the product, the commercial model, the brand and the experience around it.

Sometimes the answer is less encouraging. Customers aren't changing because the problem isn't painful enough, or the alternative isn't desirable enough. A better solution doesn't automatically mean there's a market for it.

The economics of finding out have changed

The good news is that finding out is far cheaper than it used to be. Technology has cut the time and money it takes to explore an opportunity.

We can turn an idea into something tangible in days: a proposition people can react to, an experience they can try, a commercial model we can test. We can learn what people actually value before anyone commits serious investment.

A prototype won't prove there's a market, or build trust in a new brand overnight. But it can expose problems, challenge assumptions and give customers something real to respond to.

When finding out was expensive, spending months building confidence through research, presentations and internal approvals made sense. Today, you can usually learn more by making something small and putting it in people's hands. That also means opportunities once dismissed as too speculative, costly or difficult are now worth exploring.

Look beyond the obvious opportunity

Some of the most interesting opportunities for growth are hiding in the compromises customers have learned to accept. The things they put up with. The workarounds they've invented. The needs nobody has found a compelling way to serve.

Finding them means understanding more than what customers say they want. It means understanding what they value, how they decide, which brands they trust and what might persuade them to try something different.

Turning them into growth takes a proposition that creates real value, a brand people believe in and a credible reason to make the change. Increasingly, you can find out whether you've got those right before you've spent a fortune building them.

Creating something better is the easy part. Giving people a compelling reason to choose it is where the real work begins.

Our Value Proposition sprint is built to help you find that reason, and it's a good place to start your go-to-market planning.