By: John S. Morlu II, CPA
While most businesses are busy tripping over each other to serve the same handful of customers—like kids fighting over Wi-Fi on a family trip—there’s an entire world of opportunity quietly waving from the sidelines: unserved markets.
These aren’t just “poor people in faraway places.” They’re millions of real people—resourceful, entrepreneurial, and overlooked—who have needs, spending power, and zero patience for tone-deaf solutions. Think of them as hidden treasure maps that most companies ignore because they’re too busy chasing shiny trends in saturated spaces.
It’s time to flip the script.
Where Are These Unserved Markets Hiding?
Spoiler: they’re not hiding at all. They’ve just been ignored.
Take Aissatou, a market vendor in rural Guinea. She runs a steady produce business using mental math, memory, and scraps of paper. Ask her about “cloud accounting” and she’ll point to the sky—but give her a mobile app that works in Pular, offline, and lets her track daily sales, and she’s unstoppable.
Then meet Issaka, a handyman in Timbuktu. He can fix your roof, your wiring, and your cousin’s busted motorcycle, but has no idea how to reach customers beyond his dusty neighborhood. Facebook ads? Never heard of them. Job-matching platforms? What platforms?
Now fly over to Maria, a street food vendor in rural Colombia who sells arepas by the roadside. She’s built a loyal customer base but still stores her cash earnings in a cookie tin buried behind the stove. She doesn’t trust banks—but what if she had a simple, Spanish-speaking mobile wallet with daily balance reminders and no hidden fees?
In South Asia, we meet Ramesh, a rickshaw driver in Dhaka. He knows every shortcut in the city but has no way to manage his income, plan expenses, or save for repairs. His feature phone doesn’t support apps, but a USSD-based budgeting system could help him track income and build stability—all without needing a smartphone.
Now consider Leila, a female tailor in a conservative town in Jordan. She’s brilliant with fabric, has a backlog of orders, but can’t market her work outside her immediate circle due to cultural constraints. An anonymous, women-only e-commerce platform could double her income and preserve her privacy—a simple solution with a big ripple effect.
Back in rural Kentucky, meet James, a skilled carpenter who makes handcrafted furniture in a town with more cows than cell towers. He has no online presence, no e-commerce store, and zero marketing budget. His entire business depends on word-of-mouth and local fairs. A basic website builder with offline publishing and an SMS order system could open up a national market for him.
And over in eastern Romania, Elena runs a family-owned dairy farm. Her milk is organic, fresh, and in demand—but she still takes handwritten orders by phone. She lacks access to digital logistics tools, online payment gateways, and real-time inventory tracking. A simple, local-language agri-commerce app could transform her entire operation—without needing an MBA or fiber-optic internet.
Fun Fact: Over 1.7 billion adults globally are unbanked, and even in developed nations, millions lack access to digital infrastructure or tailored services. Unserved markets aren’t defined by poverty—they’re defined by neglect.
Validate Before You Invade
An unserved market is not the same as an eager market. People may not be using your product because it’s irrelevant, inaccessible, or just plain confusing.
Start small. Think pilot programs, low-tech demos, or even simple WhatsApp surveys. Launch a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that doesn’t require Wi-Fi, user manuals, or five clicks to do anything useful.
Case in point: M-KOPA in Kenya introduced solar kits paid in small daily installments through mobile money. Households that never had electricity were able to light up their homes, avoid dangerous kerosene, and start businesses. That’s not just product-market fit—that’s product-life transformation.
If Maria can see her daily profits via voice message, or Elena can take online orders while milking cows, adoption will happen faster than you can say “beta test.”
Market Like a Human, Not a Robot
Forget targeted digital ads and hyper-optimized landing pages—unserved markets often need a human-first approach.
- Speak their language. If you’re serving a rural audience, drop the jargon. No one needs to hear about your “AI-powered liquidity platform.” Try “helps you track your money on your phone.”
- Use local channels. Issaka isn’t on LinkedIn. He’s listening to the radio or checking WhatsApp in between jobs. Elena might only hear about your product through a farming co-op. Meet people where they are.
- Build trust before you sell. Partner with cooperatives, women’s groups, local radio stations, or religious leaders. Trust is currency. If you earn it, you win the market.
Design for Simplicity and Flexibility
This might hurt, but your beautifully designed, feature-rich software might be completely useless in an unserved market.
If it needs a constant internet connection, a laptop, or tech support that says “please hold,” forget it. Build for the environment. Think low-data apps, audio-based instructions, offline functionality, and flexible payment options like mobile money or pay-as-you-go.
James doesn’t need cloud sync—he needs a way to show his furniture collection without needing to drive to a city. Make it work for his world, not yours.
The Road Less Advertised
Unserved markets are not just an opportunity—they’re a strategic advantage. They offer loyalty, room for growth, and the chance to build meaningful impact alongside profit.
So stop elbowing your way through the crowded rooms of corporate sameness. Go where people actually need what you offer. People like Aissatou, Issaka, Maria, Ramesh, Leila, James, and Elena aren’t waiting for saviors. They’re waiting for solutions that respect their reality and fuel their dreams.
The companies that serve them won’t just grow. They’ll build the future—quietly, sustainably, and powerfully.
Because in the places everyone forgets, there’s invisible gold. All you have to do is look.
Author: John S. Morlu is CEO + Chief Strategist of JS Morlu, a Virginia based CPA firm developing high powered, user-friendly tech solutions in www.finovatepro.com, www.recksoft.com, and www.fixaars.com
