The Fatal Mistake I Made When I Started My First Business
What most first-time founders misunderstand about demand
“Do what you love” or “do what you’re good at” is lousy advice for starting a business.
I’ve been a casual photographer for over a decade. I mostly ever did it for fun, but I always wondered what it would be like to monetise. People had told me my artwork was pretty good, so I figured it was worth trying.
So, I began my very own eCommerce store to sell decorative canvas prints of my work.
I trawled my collections and found my greatest pictures of London, my home city, then created them as products on my Shopify site. I named it London Canvas, believing I could always change it later, in a bid to avoid my propensity for overthinking.
I knew making the business profitable wouldn’t be easy. But even then, it turned out to be a totally different challenge from the one I expected.
You see, I’d made a pretty critical mistake. One which meant the business was hamstrung from the moment it began.
And whilst I’m not saying you should never start a business based on “do what you love” or “what you’re good at”, the advice on its own can often spell doom.
People don’t buy the hole in the wall…
There’s a marketing adage, originally said by Harvard Professor Theodore Levitt, which goes:
People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!
Believe it or not, I’m going to take aim and boldly state: this is wrong.
The reason why is simple: no one in the history of the planet ever woke up and thought, “I need a quarter-inch hole in my wall.”
If there’s anything I took away from Jim Edwards’ Copywriting Secrets, it’s that people don’t buy the drill. They don’t buy the hole in the wall, either.
They buy the ability to hang up the painting which has been collecting dust in the attic.
They buy their partner not nagging them about the half-built cabinet that’s been “in progress” for over a year.
The real lesson is simple: start with a problem the buyer recognises, then connect your offer to it. “I need holes in my masonry” is not a problem most people recognise. But, people do often have DIY projects they’d rather handle with the least amount of trouble.
Now, when you think about it, what problem does someone have where the solution is unequivocally and unarguably “a decorative canvas”?
That’s right: the answer is a big fat “f*ck all”.
That’s exactly where my own business stalled.
The source of demand
You either intercept demand or you create it.
I don’t think art businesses are dumb, nor do I think you shouldn’t monetise hobbies.
But the drill example highlights why art was always going to be incredibly tough as a first-time business.
With drills, people either need one or they don’t. There’s a clear decision moment when someone realises they need the tool to work on a project; the business’ goal is then to capture it. Here, the demand already exists and it’s being intercepted.
With wall art, even for someone who really wants to fill empty space, there’s no such decision moment where they think, “I need to buy a decorative canvas and I need one now”. And that leaves me stuck trying to convince them of what I want the solution to be.
And that’s the crux of any business: whilst “creating demand” is possible, it’s substantially harder.
It was tough for me to come to this conclusion. But eventually, when we ask honest questions about a struggling business, this may be at the heart of the problem.
It definitely was for me.
What to do instead
I’ve loved working on London Canvas.
I’m certainly not laying it to rest. But my attention has shifted elsewhere for the time being. I’ve since launched another business which still leverages my capability with photography: portraits!
Let’s run the customary check this time:
Does it have existing demand? Yes—people need pics when they’re updating their social media profiles, starting a job hunt or putting themselves on the dating market.
Is there a clear decision moment? Absolutely. Someone starting a new job hunt or putting themselves back on the dating market will have urgency, and a reason to commit to a purchase instead of dithering.
That’s the critical thing any business needs: a clear idea of who needs their product, and why/when they want to buy it.
Some businesses, like being a plumber or chef (or even a portrait photographer) have extremely obvious demand and decision moments. Others will have almost none.
Most offers lie somewhere in the middle. Demand exists, but only under certain conditions, or when the right trigger happens. There’s no harm in testing any idea. But being able to pinpoint the target client problem/solution is a great start.
Then, from there, the market will tell you everything you need to know.
Just make sure you’re listening when it does.
By the way…
If this idea resonates with you, it’s something I dig deep on in an email course I recently launched.
If you’re running a local business and you’re confused as to why you’re getting passed over for jobs you should have won, this entirely free, 5-day course will teach you everything you need to know about how businesses get selected by customers—and, how to leverage that to become “the obvious choice” in your area!