Find your blue ocean in business

For many entrepreneurs, finding a space or niche in which to build a successful business that can thrive is often the most difficult challenge. The temptation is always there to follow the trends and jump on a particular product or service bandwagon. Yet the theories first written about in Blue Ocean Strategy, the groundbreaking marketing theory book written in 2005 by professors W Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, remain true today. Businesses that can create "blue oceans" of uncontested market space, as opposed to "red oceans" where competitors fight for dominance, are more likely to be successful. There is a great story about global fashion designer turned entrepreneur, Mindy Scheier, creator of the Runway of Dreams Foundation, who was inspired by Blue Ocean theory. Her son was born with a rare form of muscular dystrophy, making it hard for him to find fashionable and functional clothing. Through her personal experiences with him, she realised that mainstream adaptive clothing was a wide-open 'blue ocean' of opportunity for her to create a unique business. It was a game-changing moment, So, which ocean do you want to swim in with your business?