Future-Back Industry Entry
Enter an emerging market through a sustainable service you can deliver now
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 89%
Start with a future you find compelling, research the technologies likely to create it, and choose an industry that is developed enough to have present needs but early enough to offer meaningful room to learn and lead. Then work backward from the industry's current bottlenecks. Instead of competing in expensive research and development against companies with billions of dollars, match an existing capability to a service the ecosystem can buy now. Mark applied his decade of marketing experience to AR and VR companies that struggled to explain products that do not yet feel real to customers. The service provides current sustainability, industry relationships, and domain knowledge while preserving the option to build more ambitious products when the technology matures.
Origin
After researching exponential technologies overnight, Mark chose AR and VR, then moved from an undefined future ambition to marketing services that the industry could use immediately.
Core principles
- 01A compelling future can guide present industry choices
- 02Enter early enough to learn but with something customers can buy today
- 03Use an existing capability before funding capital-intensive invention
- 04Support the ecosystem instead of competing with the best-funded incumbents
How to run it
- 1
Define the future thesis
Describe the future change you believe will matter and why it creates a compelling direction for your work.
Pro tip Ground the thesis in observable technology and behavior shifts, not only enthusiasm.
Watch out A vivid future is not evidence of present demand.
- 2
Research candidate industries
Compare technologies and markets for maturity, current activity, and room to develop expertise.
Pro tip Look for an industry between pure research and settled commodity competition.
- 3
Find today's bottleneck
Ask what companies in the emerging ecosystem already struggle with and can pay to solve now.
Pro tip Interview operators before assuming the bottleneck.
Watch out Do not substitute future market size for current customer evidence.
- 4
Match an existing edge
Connect the bottleneck to a skill, audience, process, or relationship you already possess.
Pro tip A familiar service in a new vertical is often cheaper than inventing new hardware.
- 5
Choose the sustainable wedge
Offer the smallest service that earns revenue and embeds you in the industry's learning loop.
Pro tip Make the first offer useful even if the distant technology takes longer than expected.
- 6
Earn the future option
Use current revenue, relationships, and knowledge to evaluate larger product opportunities as the market develops.
Watch out Do not fund speculative expansion before the enabling market is ready.
In the wild
Mark wanted to work in mixed reality but recognized that building a headset would put him against the world's largest technology companies. His team instead asked what AR and VR companies needed now and used his marketing background to help them explain products that do not yet exist in familiar physical form.
→ The agency gained a sustainable way to participate in the industry while retaining longer-term application ambitions.
Common mistakes
Competing with billion-dollar R&D
A resource-constrained entrant wastes its edge by attacking the same capital-intensive product layer as established technology giants.
Selling only the distant vision
An exciting future does not make a business sustainable unless a present customer will pay for a current problem to be solved.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for founders with a useful existing skill and conviction about an emerging industry's direction.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal when present customers have no urgent need or the future thesis rests only on hype.
From the transcript
“what could we do today that is sustainable that is going to help our industry grow without trying to invest a ton of money in…”
“I've been marketing for the past decade so we're like how can we helped companies specifically in AR and VR talk about something that doesn't…”
From the episode
Mark Metry: Transform From The Inside Out
Mark Metry