Every successful business has a monopoly—a monopoly on what it makes that someone else can’t make the way they make it.
That leaves out commodity businesses—people who bring coal out of the ground. I don’t think of those businesses as particularly successful. I think of them as useful. I’m glad if I need a bag of coal someone’s doing it, but it’s a really lousy way to make a living.
Brilliant entrepreneurship is around figuring out that thing you can do in the marketplace that people are willing to cross the street to get. It’s so people understand, “This is the one and I need it.”
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“What is it you’re going to have a monopoly on?”
Seth Godin – Start Up School, Episode 1 – Freelancer or Entrepreneur? – .pdf here