There’s this site called record setter which became the largest database of world records quickly overwhelming Guinness by allowing anyone – mostly unmoderated – to post their own world record. It wasn’t that people were suddenly achieving more incredible things, it was that the categories got more specific. A person didn’t have to juggle the most balls, they had to juggle the most neon green balls, or juggle the most neon green balls with a hat on, or juggle the most neon green balls with a hat on while wet with german vodka.
It bummed me out that people would participate in this at first, but now I love the long tail of the internet. I love that there’s always someone out there doing something that noone requested. On the flip side, there are a lot of people that we can reach that are out there requesting something that doesn’t exist yet. They have a need that’s not being served that is so specific, no business has offered it to them yet.
We have the opportunity to be the best in the world, to be the leading expert, to break the world record for one of these groups of people. When people tell me they don’t see themselves changing careers or that what they do is worthless during the pandemic, I’m surprised. We can conquer a market tomorrow if we invent it. Or, we can learn the skills of an existing market and own a corner of it most likely in less than a year. We just gotta be driven, specific and ready to fail for a while.