The inventor of the shopping cart failed to convince any grocery store owner of its value or merit until he paid strangers to use one to do their shopping. Only when enough customers inquired why he didn’t have any in bis store did the flood gates open. The concept was great, but selling the concept to grocery store owners was a failure until the right “pump” was introduced from customers.

I have experienced the problem twice now of having a product with early adopters, good pricing, good features, etc. but without a spread of adoption. The first time, I abandoned the project when the technological landscape changed and I had determined that the cost of conversion would not be compensated by additional sales. The second time,the situation is reversed because the world market for our niche is over one billion dollars, and we can expand from there into other areas with much greater revenue potential.

When we started, however, we had plenty of oohs and ahs and a few early adopters to keep us going, but our market was not ready for us. There simply was no hill for the water to flow down. We persevered and now have that hill. It’s rapidly growing from a small hill into a large mountain. We tried to make the hill unsuccessfully. Fortunately, we now have new challenges.