Corresponding to @balajis.eth's Idea Maze is the Market Maze: the path The Market follows in seeking out a satisfactory category solution and/or leader.

Of course The Market isn't a monolith, but a distribution of participants each trying different paths (marble races might be a helpful analogy of an analogy.)...

Optimist // Believer // Possibilities into opportunities // Design & strategy at Crema // tylerhilker.com

...and typically finding themselves in a similar path or consideration set that emerges as the optimal set of trade-offs.

This is part of what makes the Idea Maze so difficult: the Market Maze is always moving underneath it, always shifting in response to other ideas.

Furthermore, because The Market is an alway-shifting-distribution of participants who have varying levels of clarity about where they're going, keeping pace is incredibly difficult. Not only might the market pass you by, it might juke orthogonally & break your ankles.

So what?
→ Be clear about where you want to meet sliver of The Market you're after: leading, mainstream, etc. 
→ Listen to *those* customers & those a couple steps ahead; do it often
→ Position yourself accordingly
→ Identify points of diminishing returns; you don't always have to lookalike the leader