Vanilla and Chocolate For All

I don’t want to go overboard on food, after writing about Georgetown Cupcake and Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, but let’s anyway! I happened to pull out a cookbook today and paused a moment to read the flyleaf on the cover. I was surprised at what I read.

There are a lot of cookbooks in my cupboard, and this one is hefty - 1132 page-hefty! Called The Joy of Cooking, my copy is celebrating its 75th anniversary. I was pleased to note that the original was authored by Irma Rombauer, a widow who invested her life savings in the project, and her daughter Marion who tested the recipes. One would think that this encyclopedic cookbook was the be all and end all of recipes and cooking info!

But no. This cookbook sits among many others on the shelf. The point is this: just because someone has created something – even something “definitive” or "exhaustive" - doesn’t knock out your chance to produce something of the same general type. There are many ice cream and cupcake outlets and cookbooks without number. Some occupy specific specialty niches that their makers have ingeniously carved out. But every cupcake shop surely offers a vanilla option, every ice cream offers a chocolate, and cookbooks continue to get churned out every year.

So as you consider your own entrepreneurial options, don’t let the presumption that someone else has already used them deter you. There is not another you and, therefore, you have your own unique angle to offer the world. Your individuality may just be the "flavor" that propels your idea to success!