"No competitors, no market." Let's see: Start with Xerox with their first good machine, about 1962. Due to the difficulty of making that technology work and

"No competitors, no market." Let's see: Start with Xerox with their first good machine, about 1962. Due to the difficulty of making that technology work and their patents, they had no 'competition' and no good 'substitutes' except, say, carbon paper. "Market"? It was HUGE. I know someone who had a heart attack and got a stent installed in an artery. Blood wants to clot at the stent, So there's a drug Plavix that helps a lot, really, is essential. Plavix goes for about $7 a day, and there is NO 'competition' or substitute except a clot and death. Here's the recipe: (1) Find a problem where a much better solution will be very valuable. (2) Do some original R&D to get a much better solution difficult to duplicate or equal. (3) Market the solution with high margins and carry the money to the bank. Difficult to duplicate or equal? One protection is a patent but there can be others, say, some IT software locked up in a server farm. Is such software possible? Actually, yes. Exhibit A: Xerox. Exhibit B: Plavix. Done.