What are we looking for?

In 1999, Bill Gates gave an in depth interview for the first time to a UK television station. For many people in the UK computer industry, this broadcast was eagerly awaited with great expectations. Here was the most successful exploiter of computer technology in the world, setting out his views. What gems of wisdom would be forthcoming? What vital clues might he reveal that would point to a new direction forward.

The day following the broadcast there were discussions on most of the UK e-mail discussion forums that I belonged to, analysing what he had said in the interview. The general consensus was that he'd disclosed no useful information at all. The whole interview had seemed to most people to be banal and completely lacking in any useful information or knowledge.

I was totally amazed by this reaction because it had seemed to me that Bill Gates had summed up, in a nutshell, his entire strategy for success. It was so simple, so obvious, that most people had missed the significance. They had been looking for something clever, something that only a super brain could have thought of. In fact, it wasn't anything like this at all: it was just plain common sense.

Bill Gates had explained to the interviewer that Microsoft had created an environment. Then, in trying to make full use of that environment, they had designed tools for themselves. Other people wanting to explore and exploit this same environment would also have use of these tools. These people became customers.

The important clue this revealed was that Bill Gates saw his success in terms of pioneering and finding out for himself what could be achieved rather than trying to work out what other people wanted. It was a reasonable assumption that the tools he found necessary to develop for himself would also be needed by others.

This then is another pointer to a way of discovering an e-business opportunity. We simply explore an environment. The tools or methods we need to create along the way may lead to a revenue generating situation. As Bill Gates discovered, it is inefficient for people to reinvent the wheel; if somebody has already discovered some time saving method or application, others will be willing to pay a small price to acquire that same advantage.

As a metaphor, we might think of America in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Settlers arriving from Europe would find a land of potentially unlimited opportunity. But, their first problem would have been where to travel in order to find the best place to settle. They would need maps, guides, transportation, tools and provisions. The earliest pioneers, the explorers, would have been in the best position to know what was wanted and be able to provide these services, thus they would have been able to profit as a result of their pioneering experiences.

The first settlers arriving in America wouldn't have been sensible to have set off alone. They would have traveled with many others. In this way, they could get help from each other with any problems that came along. They would each have needed a variety of different services and these could only come from within a community.

When the settlers found an appropriate place to settle, they would have needed to settle as a community, each taking up a necessary niche to cater for a particular aspect of the community's needs. In this way it can be visualised that it is the community that is the key to everyone's success and everyone contributes to and feeds off of its strength. Yet, at the same time, everyone can be independent and free to act on their own initiative.

The Internet is much like the unexplored Americas. We need maps, guides and tools. We will have great difficulty in going alone so we need to look for traveling companions who can provide assistance or specialty help as it is needed. In short, everyone needs to be part of a collaborative community. Thus, this should be the first consideration when starting to look for an e-business opportunity.