It was over the Christmas break last year that we had the idea for Shoes of Prey, and at that time we hadn't come across too many customisable products. We'd read that customisation was a growing trend and it made sense to us that people would want to buy customised products - with the growth of manufacturing in China consumers can now buy just about anything at very cheap prices compared with just a few decades ago, so to be unique and different, consumers want to be able to customise products to suit themselves. Coupled with this demand are improvements in manufacturing that make customisation easier to do, and big improvements in software and web development which make it possible to build something like a custom shoe designer.
And we've been amazed at how many other entrepreneurs and businesses are onto the same concept! Not only can you customise your own shoes, you can mix your own muesli create your own rug or even design your own Lego set! And there are now websites dedicated to profiling companies that allow you to customise products, like Milk or Sugar who have a quickly growing list of over 100 different customisable products.
A big lesson we've taken from this is that if you have an entrepreneurial idea, it's highly likely that whatever influenced you to have the idea has influenced 1000 other people to have the same idea at the same time. So don't overplan and waste valuable time, or worry about protecting your idea, get out there and execute on the idea well and fast. To us it looks like success is more in the execution than coming up with a new idea no-one else has ever thought of - because someone else will have.
Image Credit.
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