That is to say, for less adventurous types, trying and failing sends them running back to the presumed safety of a paycheck and thus their entrepreneurial days are behind them. The entrepreneurs we admire the most are the ones that never stop trying, no matter how many failures they experience. Each one actually makes them stronger and smarter.

We could say the same thing for branding. Building a brand requires a singular focus on consistently delivering on a promise. There are many opportunities along the way to throw in the towel and become just like everyone else. It feels safer, but it guarantees eventual failure because no company can truly succeed by doing exactly what every other company does.

So investing in branding is actually the less risky choice, because it will lead the right customers directly to your door. A strong, well-articulated brand will nurture preference among the people who can most use, or best appreciate, the company’s products and services. No product is for everybody. This is clearly illustrated by bottled water. Yes, every human being needs clean, safe water to survive, but we don’t all need Dasani or VitaminWater or Evian. There are always certain somebodies who are the right customer for your branded product.

You can remove some of the risk in business by defining your certain somebodies and making sure that your brand is aimed squarely at what they want most from, or can appreciate about, your product.

I found his ideas both profound and inspirational, but I also realized a problem or two. I saw a need to help the real “guppie” — the small and medium-sized businesses, mostly entrepreneurial, who aren’t even on the scoreboard yet. They are often still run by their founders and in many cases, don’t have anyone on staff who is solely dedicated to branding and marketing, much less a marketing department. And because of their size and even perhaps their lack of focus, according to Adam Morgan’s definition of Challenger Brands, they don’t even qualify:

“There are three criteria for a Challenger Brand: a state of market, a state of mind, and a rate of success:

1. State of Market. Challengers are by definition not the Number One brands, nor are they niche
2. State of Mind. This is what really characterizes all these players — being Number Two (Number Six, or 18) is simply an accident of birth. Challenger brands have a mind-set that encompasses two key differentiators:
   1. Ambitions that exceed their conventional marketing resources, and,
   2. A preparedness to accept the marketing implications of the gap between their ambition and their marketing resource.
3. Rate of Success. The final criterion for a Challenger has to be, for our purposes, success… …a period of their life we can learn from, a period in which they enjoyed rapid growth. This is what Challengers can offer us over the Brand Leaders — an illustration of how to do it quickly.”

This year, Morgan released the second edition of Big Fish, new and improved, in which he patiently lays out 12 different “stances” a Challenger Brand can take. But the brands I am most interested in and excited about are a subset of Challenger Brands and therefore need a new name to define them (I’m working on that!). We might view this class of companies as the “Challenger Brand Farm Team,” the group that will most likely spawn the Challenger Brands of the next decade. I want to help them get there faster.

Now I understand that the rollercoaster of business is actually more like riding a Möbius strip – it’s never-ending and you sometimes find yourself upside down.

Now for the good news…it is never a bad time for a great idea. In fact, it is difficult economic times that often nurture the best ideas!

So what great ideas are likely to see the light of day this year?

1. Waste not, want not – smaller package sizes for convenience foods, bakery items, pre-packaged produce…almost any perishable
2. Reuse it, baby! – more and better reusable containers for lunch kits and deli items
3. Rent’s due – rental everything from toys to transitional sizes of clothing for dieters (check out our January ‘09 OJ Newsletter)
4. Cargo bikes – a cross between bike messengers and Smart Cars for delivering packages (or people) in urban centers
5. Green house gases – home energy assessment services to lower costs of running a household
6. Backyard farming -vegetable garden service that plants, weeds and harvests in your backyard, leaving you the goodies, in exchange for a fee of course
7. Move over babysitting! – instead of babysitting or lawn mowing, teenagers can make a few extra bucks teaching technology to oldsters
8. Park Avenue – don’t be surprised if you see leases offered for off-street parking or garage spaces through craigslist