Every aspiring entrepreneur has heard it a thousand times: find a gap in the market. It’s become such a cliché that people often dismiss it as generic business school platitude, lumping it together with other tired advice like “follow your passion” or “disrupt the industry.” But here’s the thing: this advice is actually profoundly true. The problem is that most people completely misunderstand what it means.The most common misinterpretation is that finding a gap means doing something wildly different from everyone else. People think they need to invent a product that’s never existed, enter a market that no one has touched, or approach their business in a way that breaks every convention. This leads to entrepreneurs chasing novelty for its own sake, creating solutions to problems that don’t exist, or positioning themselves so far outside the mainstream that they can’t find customers.
Finding a gap in the market is actually far more nuanced than simply being different. A gap isn’t necessarily empty space where no one has ventured before. More often, it’s a specific need that existing solutions aren’t adequately addressing. It’s the frustration that current customers feel but have learned to live with. It’s the compromise people make because they assume that’s just how things are.
Think about successful companies that found genuine gaps. Airbnb didn’t invent accommodation or short-term rentals. Hotels existed. Bed and breakfasts existed. Even platforms for finding vacation rentals existed. The gap wasn’t that no one was offering places to stay. The gap was that the existing hospitality industry was too expensive and impersonal for many travelers, while homeowners had unused space they couldn’t easily monetize. Airbnb filled that gap not by doing something completely different from everyone else, but by solving a problem that existing players had left unaddressed.
Similarly, Slack didn’t create workplace communication from scratch. Email existed. Instant messaging existed. Project management tools existed. The gap was that these tools made workplace communication fragmented, with important information scattered across platforms and lost in endless email threads. Slack brought everything together in a way that felt natural and searchable. They weren’t different for the sake of being different. They were better at solving a specific problem.The key insight is that gaps exist within markets, not outside them. When you try to be radically different from everyone else, you often end up creating something that the market doesn’t want or understand. You’re speaking a language that customers don’t recognize, solving problems they don’t have, or asking them to change their behavior too dramatically.
Finding a real gap requires you to look closely at what exists and understand why it falls short. This means you actually need to know your market intimately, understand your competitors deeply, and listen carefully to customers, including those currently buying from your competition. You’re looking for the sighs of resignation, the workarounds, the “it’s good enough I guess” responses. You’re looking for the features that nobody uses, the price points that exclude large segments, the customer service complaints that never get resolved.
Sometimes the gap is about convenience. Existing solutions work but require too much effort. Sometimes it’s about price. The product exists but only wealthy customers can afford it. Sometimes it’s about accessibility. The service is available but only in certain locations or to certain demographics. Sometimes it’s about experience. The core functionality is there but using it is frustrating or unpleasant.What makes this advice so true, and so often validated by successful businesses, is that genuine gaps represent real economic opportunity. When customers are underserved, they’re often willing to pay for a better solution. When existing solutions have weaknesses, there’s room for something that addresses those weaknesses. The market is telling you exactly where the opportunities are if you know how to listen.
The challenge is distinguishing between a real gap and a perceived gap that only exists in your imagination. Just because you personally would want something doesn’t mean a gap exists. Just because you think an industry could be done differently doesn’t mean customers are dissatisfied with the current approach. This is where many entrepreneurs stumble. They confuse their own preferences with market needs, or they assume that because something could be improved, people will automatically embrace the improvement.Validating that a gap truly exists requires evidence beyond your own intuition. Are customers actively looking for alternatives? Are they complaining about existing options? Are they cobbling together multiple solutions because no single offering meets their needs? Are there forums and discussions where people express frustration about the current state of things? If you can’t find evidence that people are dissatisfied, you probably haven’t found a real gap.
The beauty of finding an actual gap is that your marketing almost writes itself. You’re not trying to convince people they have a problem they didn’t know existed. You’re not asking them to completely change their behavior or understanding. You’re simply saying: that frustration you’ve been feeling? We’ve solved it. That compromise you’ve been making? You don’t have to anymore. That feature you wish existed? We built it.This is why “find a gap in the market” remains such enduringly good advice despite sounding generic. It’s not about innovation theater or being contrarian. It’s about genuinely understanding what’s missing and providing it. It’s about recognizing that markets are never perfectly efficient, that customer needs evolve faster than incumbent businesses can adapt, and that there’s always room for someone who solves a problem better than it’s currently being solved.
So yes, find a gap in the market. But remember that this doesn’t mean inventing something from whole cloth or positioning yourself as radically different from everyone else. It means looking at what exists, understanding where it falls short, and building something that fills that specific void. The gap is real. You just have to know where to look.