Koolaide In The Ocean

So there is a concept in the innovation and R&D parts of new-age business thinking called Blue Ocean Strategy . This couple of Harvard-press big brained economics types wrote a very good book on it back in 2005 and it became a bit of a buzz word for everyone doing innovation or starting up shop. Now personally I didn't know anything about it until a little over a month ago when one of my contacts pointed me towards the books for polishing up the business summary I was writing at the time. And I can by no means claim to know what I'm talking about, but I consider the topic much more like documentation on a phenomenon, and a glossary of buzz words than a really cohesive how-to guide. but, that being said, I totally agree with my contact; that positioning ourselves within this strategy will be hugely beneficial because people do understand this Blue Ocean stuff - they look for it in investment opportunities, and no matter how smart you are, or how good the idea, unless the water sounds all blue and tranquil they might not invest. The idea behind Blue Ocean Strategy is that all of the market space we understand to exist is the ocean. and most of the space we understand has it least one business operating on that chunk of the ocean, and often times more. and this competition often plays out not so friendly like turning the water red. Most big companies spend a very large part of their time trading bits of this red ocean back and forth (think car manufacturers trying to differentiate their next cross-over). A surprising number of start-ups form every year around minor improvements to existing products or tech - these guys are all handcuffed to fight over red ocean. Now occasionally a business traditionally fighting over red ocean takes a gamble, does some real R&D and brings something brand-new to market or somehow redefines consumer values - and the result is a brand new market (a pretty blue one!). and for a time, this blue market will belong to the company that created it, the rewards being big margins and lots of money. For us, all of this aligns pretty dang well. We are trying to start a business in a very saturated market - but by creating a tool that rewrites consumer values, and by appealing to a market previously ignored by all of the other players in the space. It sure sounds pretty and blue when you wave your hands in the right way! haha. For the last week and a bit I have been working on blueifying some of our investor facing documents in an effort to emphasize that we are creating something new and different in a brand-new market (which we actually believe). But I'm struggling with how you keep the standard red ocean numbers around (people still want to know how many users you will have, and how much money they spend) and still paint a blue picture. Its a work in progress! and I'm closer today than I have been yet so far, so I guess its all good. Other than the biz dev Steve and I are working hard on gluing the datastore into the community bits, which is pretty interesting stuff! and everyday I'm adding a little bit more functionality (my insane deadlines might be possible!).