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Here's something worth thinking about: what if the places everyone tells you to avoid are actually the best places to start?

In 1961, a young architect in Toronto bought land in a neighborhood so rough that friends told him he was building a flophouse. In 1962, a retail guy opened a discount store in a rural Arkansas town of 5,700 people while every major retailer was focused on big cities. In 1994, a Wall Street employee quit his job and started a company from a rented garage in suburban Washington while everyone serious was going to Silicon Valley.

Three overlooked locations. Three companies that quietly became some of the most dominant businesses in the world. The pattern worth noticing: they didn't just survive despite their locations. They thrived because of them.

When Isadore Sharp decided to build his first hotel on Jarvis Street in downtown Toronto in 1961, people told him directly: "How could you think of building a hotel on Jarvis? People will think it's a flophouse."

They weren't being dramatic. Jarvis Street had once been home to wealthy Torontonians. By the late 1950s, it had become known as a hangout for drug dealers and derelicts. Nobody with serious money or serious ambitions went near it. Sharp was still in his 20s, working with his contractor father, and it had taken him over five years just to convince investors to back his vision.

He opened the 125-room Four Seasons Motor Hotel on the first day of spring in 1961. Not a grand luxury palace. A three-story motor hotel on a street everyone else had written off.

But Sharp wasn't betting on the street. He was betting on a philosophy: that luxury wasn't about expensive furniture and marble floors. It was about service. About how guests felt. He tested that idea in the one location nobody else wanted, where land was cheap, competition was zero, and he could learn without giants watching over his shoulder.

Forty-six years later, in 2007, Bill Gates and Saudi Prince Alwaleed bought a majority stake in Four Seasons for $3.8 billion. The kid who couldn't get people to take his hotel seriously on a run-down Toronto street had built one of the most respected luxury hotel brands in the world.

Sam Walton had already been in retail for 17 years by the time he opened his first Walmart. He'd run successful Ben Franklin variety stores. He understood customers. He understood pricing.

But when he sat down with major retail executives and pitched his idea for deep discount stores in small rural towns, they thought it was ridiculous. Every successful retailer at the time was chasing cities. More population meant more customers. Simple math.

Walton saw it differently. Small-town Americans needed low prices just as much as city people. But nobody was serving them. The small towns were completely empty of serious competition.

On July 2, 1962, he opened the first Walmart in Rogers, Arkansas. Population: 5,700 people. His competitors weren't worried. Why would they be? They were building stores in cities of hundreds of thousands.

That was exactly the point. Walton spent years building and perfecting his operation in towns where no big chain would bother to compete. By the time competitors noticed what was happening, Walmart had deep roots in hundreds of communities, loyal customers with nowhere else to go, and a supply chain built for efficiency that nobody else had bothered to develop for rural markets.

"There was much more business out there in small-town America than anybody had ever dreamed of," Walton recalled later.

Today Walmart generates over $700 billion in annual revenue. It started in a town most retailers couldn't find on a map.

In 1994, Jeff Bezos left a promising career on Wall Street with a plan to build an online bookstore. Every ambitious startup founder at the time was heading to Silicon Valley. The talent was there. The money was there. The prestige was there.

Bezos went to Bellevue, Washington, and set up in a rented house with a garage that had a concrete floor and humming servers.

The location wasn't an accident. Seattle had software engineers because of Microsoft nearby. The University of Washington produced computer science graduates. And by avoiding California, Bezos avoided the sales tax obligations that would have applied to customers in the largest state in the country. Every small advantage mattered when you're starting with nothing.

He and MacKenzie packed books and drove them to the post office themselves. No fancy office. No big team. Just a working operation in a place nobody thought to look.

Amazon is now worth $2.4 trillion. It started in a suburban garage while everyone serious was somewhere else.

They started where competition was zero. Sharp built on a street nobody wanted. Walton opened in towns big chains ignored. Bezos skipped the valley where every other tech startup was fighting for attention and talent. When you're in a place nobody else wants, you have room to learn, build, and get strong before anyone comes after you.

The dismissed location tested whether the idea was real. Sharp's service philosophy worked even on Jarvis Street. That proved it wasn't about location at all. Walton's pricing model worked even in small towns. That proved the real advantage was the operation, not the city. Bezos's bookstore worked even from a garage. That proved the internet didn't need a prestigious zip code.

Their competitors' snobbery became their moat. Every year a big retailer refused to enter small-town Arkansas, Walmart got stronger. Every year a luxury hotel chain ignored run-down neighborhoods, Sharp refined his service model. The competition literally handed them years of uncontested building time.

The principle: Starting where nobody else wants to be gives you time and space to get good before anyone shows up to fight you.

Cheap entry, zero competition

When nobody wants a location, prices are low, competition is absent, and the pressure to be perfect immediately is gone. Sharp paid far less for land on Jarvis Street than he would have in a desirable area. Walton's rural stores had no direct competitors for years. That breathing room is worth more than it looks when you're figuring things out.

Loyalty runs deeper

Walton understood this instinctively. When you're the only store in a small town that offers good prices, customers don't just shop with you. They depend on you. Sharp's early guests weren't choosing him over the Ritz. He was building them from scratch, creating loyalty before luxury brands even knew he existed.

You learn without giants watching

Every early mistake at a Four Seasons on Jarvis Street was invisible to the hotel industry. Every operational experiment Walmart ran in rural Arkansas went unnoticed by Sears and Kmart. Bezos shipped books from a garage without anyone studying his playbook. Obscurity, early on, is a protection most people underestimate.

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Look for the Jarvis Streets in your market

What customers, locations, or groups is everyone else ignoring? Not because those people don't have needs or money, but because they're not glamorous enough. Rural areas. Less trendy niches. Older demographics. These "unsexy" corners often have the lowest competition and the highest loyalty.

Treat early obscurity as an advantage

When nobody is watching, you can experiment cheaply and learn fast. Don't rush to get attention before the product is right. Sharp spent years perfecting his service model before the world noticed. Use that invisible early period to get sharp at the actual work.

Test the real idea in the hardest conditions

If the business works somewhere difficult, a tough neighborhood, a tiny market, a cheap garage setup, that's proof the core idea is real. If it only works with perfect conditions, ideal location, and a big budget, the idea might not be as solid as it looks.

The businesses that eventually take over industries often start in places that get no coverage, no respect, and no competition. That's not a coincidence.

Until next time,
Emil - Founder of Income Ivy

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