Look Sideways: Your Best Business Ideas May Not Come From Your Industry

When business owners want to improve what they’re doing, they usually look in one place.

Their competitors.

They study websites.

Browse social media.

Subscribe to newsletters.

Analyze pricing.

Pay attention to what everyone else in their industry seems to be doing.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

But if everyone is looking in the same direction, it’s not surprising that so many businesses begin to sound, look, and feel alike.

Some of the most valuable ideas I’ve ever encountered didn’t come from my own industry.

They came from looking sideways.

This idea is woven throughout Following the Thread, which explores how meaningful work often begins where most people stop paying attention.

Sometimes the next breakthrough isn’t found by looking harder at what’s already familiar. It’s found by noticing patterns in places others overlook.

Innovation often comes from adaptation, not invention

We tend to think innovation means creating something entirely new.

More often, it means recognizing a great idea in one context and thoughtfully adapting it to another.

One industry solves a customer experience challenge.

Another develops a brilliant onboarding process.

A third finds an elegant way to organize information or build trust.

None of those ideas have to stay where they started.

They’re patterns.

And patterns travel surprisingly well.

The key isn’t copying what another business does.

It’s understanding why it works.

Stop asking, “What are my competitors doing?”

A more interesting question is:

Who else solves a similar problem in a completely different way?

A museum thinks about guiding people through a story.

A library thinks about helping people find exactly what they need.

A boutique hotel thinks about creating memorable experiences.

A software company thinks about reducing friction.

A neighborhood café thinks about creating a sense of belonging.

None of these businesses share the same business model.

But each has developed systems, habits, or experiences that can inspire new ways of thinking.

When you study them, you’re not looking for tactics.

You’re looking for principles.

Creativity lives at the intersections

One of the things I enjoy most about building businesses is noticing connections that aren’t immediately obvious.

Sometimes a conversation about architecture sparks an idea for a website.

A documentary changes how I think about teaching.

A visit to a local bookstore inspires a new way of organizing content.

These moments aren’t random.

They’re the result of paying attention across disciplines.

The more inputs you have, the more opportunities your mind has to connect them in unexpected ways.

That’s often where originality begins.

Looking sideways helps you escape industry echo chambers

Every industry develops its own assumptions.

Certain words become fashionable.

Specific strategies get repeated.

Before long, everyone is solving the same problems in roughly the same ways.

Looking outside your field interrupts that pattern.

It helps you question practices you’ve accepted simply because “that’s how it’s always been done.”

Sometimes you’ll discover a better answer.

Other times you’ll simply ask a better question.

Either way, you’ve expanded the possibilities.

In the age of AI, connections become even more valuable

AI is remarkably good at identifying patterns within what already exists.

One of our greatest opportunities as humans is recognizing relationships between ideas that don’t usually appear together.

That’s difficult to automate because it depends on curiosity.

On lived experience.

On paying attention to seemingly unrelated things.

The businesses that stand out won’t necessarily be the ones consuming more information.

They’ll be the ones connecting it in more interesting ways.

Build a habit of looking sideways

The next time you’re searching for inspiration, resist the urge to study only your competitors.

Visit a museum.

Read outside your field.

Listen to a podcast from an entirely different industry.

Notice how a restaurant welcomes guests.

Observe how a nonprofit tells stories.

Pay attention to the way a local retailer creates community.

Then ask yourself:

What principle could I adapt for my own business?

Not because you want to become more like them.

But because the best ideas rarely arrive fully formed.

They emerge when we’re willing to follow a thread that leads somewhere unexpected.

Sometimes the most valuable thing you can do for your business isn’t looking harder at your industry.

It’s looking sideways.