I'm in the early process of building my first business. The idea solves a real problem that I can observe daily in a specific professional context. People deal with it, it wastes their time, and no clean solution exists.
But here's what's holding me back mentally: there are essentially no competitors. Nobody else is really operating in this space.
I know the common advice is that competition validates a market. So when there's almost none, it's hard not to second-guess everything. Is the niche too small? Did someone try and fail before me and I just can't find it? Or did nobody notice the opportunity yet?
For those of you who've built businesses in underserved or genuinely low-competition niches — how did you get comfortable with that uncertainty? How did you validate the demand was actually there before committing fully?