You don’t have to ‘go it alone’ to be successful in business. Look to nature for a useful model to follow.
There are many examples in nature of how creatures coexist in mutualist relationships that benefit them individually and collectively. A great example is the Pilot fish.
The Pilot fish congregates around sharks and other species that are predators as well as ships. They have a mutually beneficial relationship with sharks. They get fed from the scraps that the shark creates and are protected from predators who fear the sharks whilst the shark gains freedom from parasites thanks to the Pilot fish. This mutualist relationship translates well to business.
Whilst searching for a premises to move my fledgling business’s office out of my home because the family was expanding in the early ‘80s, I discovered a nearby run-down shop that I was considering renovating to turn it into the office. It was located immediately opposite the exit driveway of a newly opened Kentucky Fried Chicken (now KFC). I had worked part time as a pizza cook to earn income whilst getting my ICT business off the ground and occurred to me that the shop would make an excellent takeaway pizzeria because everyone that exited the KFC had to see the shop, they were already takeaway food customers, and they would potentially want pizza even if their children preferred the KFC.
I mentioned the pizzeria idea to a friend of mine who had just sold his café. He jumped at the idea. Whilst we still operated our ‘day businesses’, we bought the building, renovated it, opened the business, operated it highly successfully for 18 months, then sold the goodwill that we had created from nothing for a tidy sum. We subsequently sold the renovated building, making a multiple on our investment because it now housed a viable business which still operates to this day, 40 years later. We never once advertised. We traded off the location opposite KFC who attracted takeaway food customers with their massive advertising/brand, then built a loyal customer base who valued our quality product and offered word-of mouth promotion that enhanced our reputation.
We were the ‘Pilot fish’ under the belly of KFC who no doubt gained business from our customers when they wanted a change.
I did a similar thing on a much larger scale in the ICT industry a few years later, where based on our company’s substantial presence, service capability, and reputation in the Australian marketplace, we were able to leverage a rapidly expanding massive global manufacturer that was the ‘shark’ who created the market that we were able to capitalise on.
Creating a market or winning in a niche is expensive, risky, and takes a lot of time. There are massive organisations that open lucrative opportunities for complimentary offerings from smart business operators. It is no accident that nearby a medical clinic there is a pharmacy or that the major retail malls need an ‘anchor’ major retailer to fill the ‘specialty shops’ and make the mall viable.
Look for the ‘sharks’ that you can leverage in a mutualist relationship in your industry, then build your business along with theirs, by profitably complimenting their offerings and delighting your mutual customers.
