Brownfield Markets
N-of-1 products work in any market
Greenfield gets all the buzz, but N-of-1 products in massive brownfield markets (crowded w/ bad options) yield equally massive outcomes.
WhatsApp ($16B) 15 years after BBM & AIM.
Airbnb ($96B) 15 years after VRBO & Expedia.
Of course the trade-off for founders in brownfield markets is a great up-hill shlep. Investors AND consumers will doubt your differentiation. In extremely browned markets with tons of bad solutions, people will lose belief in new products (ie. Crypto).
That said, the best founders will overcome this by building a world-class product. It’s hard, but that’s the benchmark in a brownfield market.