Let’s talk about the concept of market saturation and how it serves as an excuse not to try new things. Because entrepreneurship is such a popular trend, an existing hurdle is that many people are starting the same types of businesses. Too often I hear people say, “I don’t know that I can be successful because that market is too saturated.” To be totally honest, I cringe every time I hear that statement. Hearing that someone is choosing not to go hard because of their competition makes me feel like they don’t want it bad enough. The harsh reality is every existing market is saturated, just research an alternative route to reach the same goal for your vision.

Here are four things you should consider when starting a business/brand:

1. Your brand’s uniqueness distinguishes it from another. It is your job to be creative in establishing your brand by bringing a flair that other brands don’t have. What sets your business apart from others is your personality and your niche! There is a million ways to market the same product.
2. There is risk in trying to “create a market.” Deciding to create a market rather than join one can be difficult. Because the new market isn’t proven to be successful, there is more risk for failure and you will spend much of your time proving to people why your concept/idea is relevant.
3. You’ll waste too much time waiting to find an idea that no one has thought off. Everything that exists is just an altered version of something else. Even in the rare case that you find something no one has ever thought of, someone else will come along and try to invent a better version of that.
4. Are you really the greatest or best at anything if there isn’t any other competition? While I’ve never been an athlete, the one thing I admire most about sports is that there are so many players who each bring a specific skill set to their teams and/or league. Though each player is playing the same game, they are consistently competing to be the best – a title that is altered from season-to-season based on hard work and performance.

The saturation of your desired industry should serve as your motivation to be innovative. A perfect example of this is the age-old iPhone versus Android discussion. While both types of phones do the same thing in terms of calling and texting, they both offer features that are exclusive to their brand. Both phones have similar capabilities to meet the needs of consumers, but they are unique in design. The most common example of this is video calling – while iOS is one uniform system that comes with FaceTime automatically on the phone, Android provides consumers with choice of what video app they’d like to download (Google Duo, Google Hangouts, or Skype). Stop allowing the moves and ideas of others to be the reason you don’t follow your dreams. Do you think Android is planning to stop their business because iPhones are so popular OR are they consistently developing new ways to compete?