The Graduate

It’s the season for new graduates to begin their careers, or enter a next stage. There’s a business parallel to the situation that many face as they seek opportunities.

I’ve seen young people reading too much into job titles, or their major fields of study, as determining the market for their services. That’s fine for many graduates, because there are some well-structured labor markets where that fits. Whether through on-campus interviews or online job postings, these graduates and employers find each other.

Others—notably liberal arts or other non-vocational majors—can deploy their skills in many more places. The process is just less pre-defined by their employers and schools. (Advice about that for any early career people in your life is at the end of this post.)

It’s a lot like Market Discovery for a company with product and service offerings that are relevant to multiple markets—but which markets is not obvious.

Continuous Market Discovery

Your company is not its products/services. That’s not the best definition of opportunity. Instead, advises Intuit’s Brad Smith, don’t fall in love with your solution – fall in love with the problem you solve. That avoids getting internally-focused, for one thing. It can also help to avoid the trap of getting stuck in today’s definition of your business.

I recently spoke with executives of two companies in New England whose corporate heritage goes way back, and prosper today because they evolved to solve new problems for customers.

Click here to discover 2 key examples of companies that service multiple markets and continue leveraging their capabilities to solve problems for customers in new markets, and learn how to apply their strategies to your business.