Selling ice cream to Vermonters?
They chose a market with no competitors, over a market with warm weather.
—Ben… or Jerry… (of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream) speaking at Melbourne University, Australia. Via Steve Sammartino at Start Up Blog
No competition. Darn straight.
Grow and be well,
Kelly Erickson
P.S. Thanks, folks, for your patience with my relative quiet this week. Storms have held MCE at bay, literally! We’ll be back in fine form next week.
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11 December 2009, 9:54 am
That’s a pretty big storm — took out Toronto, Quebec, and the Maritimes as well.
Lucky us, it’s too cold to snow here…
~Graham
11 December 2009, 12:13 pm
That is why “where I live” is a good place to start a business. There’s no competition at all, unless you’re a taxidermist or you make snowshoes…
Brett Legree´s latest blog… 6 weeks 2 days.
11 December 2009, 1:03 pm
@Brett – …or a supplier of medical isotopes.
~Graham
11 December 2009, 3:20 pm
Heh heh well, our competition (replacement?) will be located either in Saskatchewan or BC, so it seems
Brett Legree´s latest blog… 6 weeks 2 days.
18 December 2009, 3:39 pm
Jeez. Your comments got buried under mountain of emails, guys. I’m officially digging out of email today—and cocooning for a snowstorm tomorrow at the same time, it seems. (They predict 9″, which would cripple this state for a week; I predict a dusting, which would be just what we always get when the forecast is for doom.)
Thanks for talking amongst yourselves.
And Brett—that’s what I love about little towns. If you’re willing to keep your eyes and your mind wide open, there often are opportunities in the tiniest of places that simply wouldn’t be available in more populated areas.
Ben and Jerry are my heroes for looking at their offering in such a fresh way: we don’t sell ice cream, we sell indulgences. That do good for our friends and neighbors. That’s something folks want all year ’round, especially in Vermont, where I’m well acquainted with their tight-knit, let’s-help-each-other philosophy. They read their market perfectly, and had a great time with it.
Sweet.
Regards,
Kelly