The trend is your friend
When we think about the future, we are not just guessing—we are looking for clues in the present that hint at what is coming next. This process of spotting patterns or trends early on is like finding a map that guides us toward what the future might hold.
By paying attention to what happens repeatedly, we can start to see the direction in which things are moving, and this gives us the confidence to anticipate what might happen next.
Trends are your friend in this journey. There is a saying: 'One is a random, two is a coincidence, three is a trend.'
This idea underscores the importance of recognising signal when isolated events begin to form a pattern. Once you spot that third occurrence, you are no longer dealing with chance—you are seeing a trend that can lead you forward.
These trends act like signposts along the road, pointing out opportunities that others might miss. By embracing trends, you are not only preparing for the future but also position yourself to take advantage of emerging opportunities.
Example - Lululemon:
"Whenever I saw something three times, I moved on it quickly.
So the yoga part of it was like this: I saw something on a telephone post where you rip off a number, then I went to a yoga class, heard about it in a coffee shop, and read about it in the newspaper—all within a week. I had never known anything about yoga before, and then suddenly, it was everywhere. I thought, 'Oh my God, there's something here.'" — Chip Wilson, founder of Lululemon Athletica.
Chip Wilson explains in a video interview how he recognised that yoga was on the verge of becoming a major trend by observing signals that confirmed its growing popularity.
Example – Cuzen Matcha
Once you start recognising patterns, the next step is learning to see what’s missing within them — the untapped space where new opportunities can grow.
Eijiro Tsukada, a former Beam Suntory employee, experienced this firsthand. In 2015, during a trip to New York City, he noticed something strange: cafés were serving matcha lattes — something he had never seen in Japan, the birthplace of matcha itself.
When he returned to Japan, he urged his company to invest in the U.S. tea market and opened Stonemill Matcha Café. The project was later shelved for lack of scale, but Tsukada saw what others didn’t: while coffee lovers had espresso machines to grind and brew on demand, there was no equivalent for matcha.
So he created one. A device that made it easy for anyone to prepare fresh, authentic matcha anywhere. That invention became Cuzen Matcha, and it helped fuel the global matcha craze.
Tsukada’s story shows that recognising a trend is just the beginning. The real foresight lies in asking: “What’s still missing, and why hasn’t anyone filled it yet?”
