How everyday people and SMEs can see what seasoned investors see.
Most people think investors possess magical instincts that they can smell profit the way a chef smells burnt food. But after decades across entrepreneurship, property development and deal-making, you’ll end up finding out that investment intuition isn’t mystical but rather, trained. It’s pattern recognition sharpened by the simple habit of paying attention to the right signals and ignoring the noise that distracts everyone else.
This guide is the blueprint.
Follow Frustration: The Market Always Complains Before It Pays
If you want to know where the next opportunity is, don’t look for excitement, look for complaints. It’s nothing new that every profitable business or investment category today was once a frustration:
People hated paying outrageous bank fees and as a result fintechs exploded.
Tenants hated terrible landlords and this birthed co-living.
SMEs hated manual inventory which gave us cloud-based POS.
Commuters hated traffic and as a result bike-hailing startups emerged.
The mistake everyday people make is assuming complaints show danger. But to an entrepreneur, complaints are the clearest sign of unmet demand.
How to use this to your advantage:
Spend one week listing the top 10 things customers, tenants, employees, neighbours, or suppliers constantly complain about. Then ask: What would people gladly pay to avoid here?
That question alone can reveal an opportunity worth six to seven figures.
Look for Behaviour Changing Faster Than Infrastructure Can Keep Up
This is one of the most powerful investment indicators and hardly anyone notices it. When people adopt a new behaviour faster than systems, regulations, or physical structures can support, growth opportunities explode.
Examples:
Online shopping grew faster than warehouses and as a result industrial storage boomed.
Remote work grew faster than city planning, suburban housing prices surged.
Digital payments grew faster than banking penetration, agency banking exploded.
New Developents like the chuan groove residences are popping up all over the place
When behaviour outruns infrastructure, the gap creates opportunity.
Look for Markets Where Customers Don’t Know How to Compare Options
This is where margins are biggest. In highly competitive, well-understood markets (e.g., retail fuel, telecom data, groceries), customers know prices and compare aggressively. Profit is thin.
But in markets where customers feel confused, overwhelmed, unsure how to evaluate options, or scared of making the wrong decision, they will pay a premium for clarity and trust.
This is why property agents, health services, legal advice, insurtech, B2B software, and specialised skills can charge significantly more. Not because they’re expensive but because the customer’s fear of a bad choice is high.
If you find a market where people say:
“I don’t even know where to start,”
you’ve found a high-margin opportunity.
Spot the Upgrade Path (Where Money Naturally Flows Next)
Investments are easier when you don’t have to convince money and it naturally moves along predictable paths.
In almost every sector, there is an upgrade ladder.
An entry-level purchase → a mid-tier upgrade → a premium upgrade → a maintenance upgrade.
Example in property:
Renting → apartment → townhouse → land → commercial → development.
Every rung offers its own opportunities if you know where the customer is about to climb.
Example in tech for SMEs:
Manual records → Excel → POS → accounting software → inventory suite → automation.
The best B2B companies build products that sit one step above what customers currently use never ten steps ahead.
Question to ask:
What are people already spending on?
What’s the next logical upgrade they will spend on soon?
Predict where money is headed, not where it currently sits.
Look for Inefficient Middlemen. Then Offer Clarity, Speed, or Transparency
Weak markets rely on opaque middlemen. Strong opportunities exist where middlemen:
take huge margins,
add little value,
confuse the customer,
or rely on how things have always been done.
Examples:
Freight forwarding, land documentation, artisan services, auto parts, property transactions, cross-border payments.
If you can remove friction, improve transparency, or speed up delivery, you instantly stand out in sectors where customers feel helpless.
The rule: If someone says “I don’t understand why this costs this much, there’s room for a better business model.
Study What People Do, Not What They Say
Customers lie unintentionally. Not maliciously but just humanly. They may say:
“I won’t pay for that,”
but they will pay if the pain is strong enough.
They may say:
“I’m only browsing,”
But they’re researching because something in their life is about to change.
The smartest investors will watch out or such behaviour.
Small signals that reveal big truths:
A store with many window shoppers but few buyers = poor positioning.
A product that people buy even when it’s inconvenient = strong value proposition.
A neighbourhood with many renovations = owners preparing for resale.
A mobile app with low downloads but high daily use = deep engagement.
Behaviour predicts markets more reliably than surveys.
Hunt for Places Where People Are Spending Out of Habit, Not Logic
One of the easiest opportunities for SMEs is identifying things people spend on by default simply because they’ve always done it that way.
If a customer has been paying the same vendor, fee, or provider for years without reconsidering alternatives, that’s a market with defenseless incumbents.
These are markets ripe for entry because the existing players have grown complacent.
Understand That The Person Who Controls a Market Isn’t Always Who Sells the Product
Every market has a hidden decision-maker. Sometimes it’s not the buyer but rather the influencer.
Examples:
Developers make the decision, but surveyors and contractors influence what materials get used.
Landlords set prices, but agents decide which properties tenants even see.
Parents pay for school, but students drive where they want to attend.
Businesses pay for software, but accountants choose which system they prefer.
High-potential opportunities exist when you build relationships with the real source of truth, a perfect example of this would be information platforms like the chuan groove residence price list or similar sources.
The reason such avenues are priceless is that it lets you win on a platform that shapes the market.
Go Where Transparency Is Poor.
When a market is highly measurable and publicly understood, competition kills profit.
Markets with low transparency likeland in emerging neighbourhoods, wholesale supply chains, B2B operations tend to reward those who put in real work.
If you can:
verify data others can’t,
build networks competitors don’t have,
or understand pricing others find confusing…
…you gain a durable, unfair advantage.
Opportunity hides where information is messy.
Final Thought
The difference between the everyday person and the seasoned entrepreneur is simple as the fact that most people only look for opportunities when they need money. As an entrepreneur, you need to break the pattern and you train your eyes to notice these opportunities so you won’t just spot high-potential investments, but you’ll spot them before the rest of the market wakes up.
Read more:
The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Spotting High-Potential Investment Opportunities
