Innovation often comes from people who see patterns before others do.
While many business leaders focus on trends, the strongest entrepreneurs tend to focus on something deeper. They pay attention to recurring problems, changing behaviours, and signals that appear across different industries. Long before a trend dominates headlines, smaller shifts are already taking place beneath the surface.
Reeve Benaron has spent much of his career looking for those signals. As Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Intrivo Diagnostics, Chairman of AUDIENCEX, and a partner at AX Venture Partners, he works across healthcare, media, technology, and venture investing. That experience has given him a front-row seat to how emerging ideas become scalable businesses.
That mix of healthcare, advertising, technology, and venture investing has shaped the way he thinks about opportunity. For Benaron, the strongest ideas often start with a pattern that others have not yet noticed.
Trends Tell You What’s Popular. Patterns Tell You What’s Changing.
There is nothing wrong with following trends. They can show where markets are moving and where investment is flowing. The problem is that trends usually attract attention after an opportunity has already taken shape.
Artificial intelligence is a good example. Today, AI dominates business conversations, but the companies benefiting most from it often started paying attention years before it became a mainstream topic.
According to McKinsey, 78% of organisations reported using AI in at least one business function in 2024, up from 55% the year before. By the time adoption reaches that level, the trend is already established.
“The opportunities that mattered most usually started with an observation, not a prediction,” says Benaron.
Pattern recognition is simply noticing the same problem or behaviour appearing in different places. A shift that seems minor in one industry may be the beginning of a much larger change. By the time a trend reaches the front page of a business publication, entrepreneurs are usually competing for it.
Patterns are where the real head start comes from.
Big Opportunities Usually Start With Small Frustrations
Many entrepreneurs expect opportunities to arrive with a spotlight attached. In reality, they often begin as everyday frustrations that people have learned to tolerate.
Long wait times, poor communication, repetitive tasks, and information overload rarely sound revolutionary. Yet they often reveal where customers are struggling and where businesses are leaving value on the table.
Amazon simplified buying products. Uber simplified transportation. Airbnb simplified finding a place to stay. None of those ideas seemed groundbreaking at first. They succeeded because they removed friction from common experiences.
“What matters is not how exciting a problem sounds,” says Benaron. “What matters is how often it occurs and how many people experience it.”
That is where patterns become valuable. A single complaint may not mean much. The same complaint appearing across different customer groups, industries, or markets can signal a much larger opportunity.
The Same Pattern Can Show Up in Different Industries
One of the biggest advantages of working across multiple industries is the ability to recognise similarities that others overlook.
Advertising and healthcare seem like completely different worlds. One focuses on audiences and campaigns. The other focuses on diagnostics and patient care. Yet both industries depend on information, timing, and decision-making.
Both also require organisations to process large amounts of data and turn it into useful action.
Benaron noticed this while working across both sectors. Although the industries looked different on the surface, many organisations were facing similar challenges. Teams were collecting more information than ever before, yet they often struggled to turn that information into better decisions.
“When I started spending more time in healthcare, I realised many organisations were dealing with the same challenges I’d seen in advertising. The industries were different, but the problems were often very similar.”
That observation became even more obvious during the pandemic. Healthcare organisations had access to enormous amounts of information, but the challenge was turning it into useful action. The same pattern appears across many industries.
Why Entrepreneurs Miss the Signals
Most entrepreneurs spend a great deal of time studying competitors. They read the same reports, attend the same conferences, and follow the same conversations. That knowledge is valuable, but it can also create blind spots.
When everyone studies the same market, they often reach the same conclusions. As a result, more people compete for obvious opportunities while fewer people pay attention to emerging ones.
Some of the best ideas come from looking somewhere completely different. A founder in healthcare may learn something from logistics. A software company may borrow an idea from retail. A media business may discover a better approach by studying financial services.
The goal is not to copy another industry. The goal is to understand why something works and whether the same principle can solve a different problem.
“Some of the strongest businesses I’ve seen weren’t built around a new invention. They came from applying an existing solution to a different problem.”
Looking outside your own industry does not guarantee success, but it often reveals possibilities that competitors never see.
How to Train Yourself to Spot Patterns
Pattern recognition is not a talent reserved for a select few. It is a skill that can be developed through curiosity and observation.
Read Outside Your Industry
The first step is to broaden your perspective. Follow businesses that solve different kinds of problems. Pay attention to how customer expectations are changing, even when those changes seem unrelated to your own market.
Listen for Repeated Complaints
Frustrations often reveal opportunities before market data does. When the same complaint appears repeatedly, it is worth asking why. If it appears across multiple industries, it may point to a larger shift that has not yet become obvious.
Ask Where Else It Happens
A challenge facing one industry today may appear in another tomorrow. Looking for those connections can uncover opportunities long before they become widely recognised.
Focus on Behaviour
Technologies come and go. Human needs tend to change much more slowly. People still want convenience, clarity, speed, and better outcomes. Entrepreneurs who understand those needs often have a better view of where markets are heading.
Observation Beats Prediction
Entrepreneurship is often described as the ability to predict the future. In practice, it is usually closer to the ability to observe what others overlook.
The strongest founders pay attention to recurring problems, emerging behaviours, and connections that may seem unrelated at first. Over time, those observations reveal patterns. Those patterns create opportunities.
“The most interesting opportunities I’ve seen usually appeared when people stopped chasing trends and started paying attention to problems,” says Benaron.
Trends tell us where attention is going. Patterns help explain why.
The entrepreneurs who understand that difference are often the ones who spot opportunities first.
