Imagine pulling into what looks like a perfectly functional EV charging station, only to discover it’s broken, costs three times what you expected, or requires downloading yet another app just to get started. For the 73% of small business owners considering electric vehicles for their fleets, this frustrating scenario represents more than just an inconvenience—it’s a barrier to sustainable business operations. Dutch startup Tap Electric is tackling these pain points head-on with transparent pricing and streamlined access, but their emergence raises a crucial question: how many obvious problems in your industry are waiting for someone brave enough to solve them? The EV charging crisis offers powerful lessons for SME owners about identifying market gaps, customer pain points, and the goldmine opportunities hiding in plain sight.
The Hidden Cost of Obvious Problems
The EV charging industry’s dysfunction didn’t happen overnight—it’s the result of rapid growth without sufficient attention to user experience. Sound familiar? Many SMEs face similar challenges when they scale quickly without addressing fundamental customer friction points. Consider a local restaurant chain that expanded to five locations but never standardized their ordering process, leaving customers confused about different menus and payment systems at each site. Like EV drivers hunting for functional chargers, customers often abandon businesses that make simple transactions unnecessarily complicated.
Tap Electric’s focus on transparency reveals a universal business truth: customers will pay more for predictability than they will for promises. When SME owners think about their own pricing strategies, how often do they consider the emotional cost of uncertainty? A freelance graphic designer who provides clear project timelines and fixed-price packages often outcompetes talented competitors who give vague estimates. The lesson isn’t just about fair pricing—it’s about eliminating the mental energy customers waste worrying about what they don’t know.
Turning Customer Frustration Into Competitive Advantage
Every industry has its equivalent of broken EV chargers—those persistent annoyances that everyone complains about but no one addresses. Smart SME owners actively collect these complaints and transform them into business opportunities. Take the accounting firm that noticed clients constantly frustrated by last-minute document requests during tax season. Instead of accepting this as “industry standard,” they created a year-round document collection system with automated reminders, turning their biggest customer pain point into their strongest selling point.
The key insight from Tap Electric’s approach isn’t just solving problems—it’s solving obvious problems that established players have ignored. Why do obvious solutions often take so long to emerge? Established companies become blind to customer friction because they’re focused on internal metrics rather than customer experience. This creates extraordinary opportunities for nimble SMEs willing to prioritize customer pain points over industry conventions. Ask yourself: what does everyone in your industry accept as “just the way things are” that could be dramatically improved?
The Infrastructure Opportunity for SMEs
Tap Electric’s success highlights how infrastructure problems create service opportunities. While most businesses can’t build physical charging networks, every SME can identify infrastructure gaps in their market. A small IT consultancy noticed that local businesses struggled with reliable internet during video calls, so they created a “connectivity audit” service that became their fastest-growing revenue stream. A boutique marketing agency realized their clients lacked basic analytics understanding, so they developed a monthly “numbers translation” service that explained marketing metrics in plain English.
The broader lesson extends beyond problem-solving to market positioning. Tap Electric didn’t just create better charging stations—they positioned themselves as the antidote to industry frustration. How is your SME positioning itself relative to customer pain points? Are you the reliable alternative to unreliable competitors? The transparent choice in an opaque industry? The simple solution to complex problems? Your positioning should make customers immediately understand why you exist and why they need you.
Building Your Business Around Customer Certainty
The most actionable insight from Tap Electric’s approach is their focus on customer certainty. In an uncertain world, businesses that provide predictable experiences command premium prices and customer loyalty. This doesn’t require massive investment—it requires systematic attention to every point where customers might feel confused, surprised, or frustrated. Start by mapping your customer journey and identifying every moment of uncertainty: unclear pricing, vague timelines, confusing processes, or unreliable communication.
Consider implementing “certainty systems” in your business: fixed-price packages instead of hourly billing, detailed project timelines with regular updates, or guarantee policies that remove customer risk. A small landscaping company transformed their business by offering “weather guarantee” services—if weather delayed their work, they provided partial refunds. This simple policy eliminated the biggest source of customer anxiety and became their primary competitive differentiator.
Your Next Move: From Insight to Action
The EV charging crisis reveals that extraordinary business opportunities often hide behind ordinary customer complaints. The companies that thrive in the next decade won’t necessarily be the most innovative—they’ll be the ones that solve obvious problems everyone else ignored. Your competitive advantage might not require groundbreaking technology or massive investment; it might simply require the courage to address what everyone knows is broken.
Start this week by conducting your own “pain point audit.” Survey your last ten customers about their biggest frustrations—not just with your service, but with your entire industry. Listen for the complaints that make you think, “Yes, that is annoying, but that’s just how things work.” Those “just how things work” moments are where your next breakthrough lives. The question isn’t whether obvious problems exist in your market—it’s whether you’ll be the one brave enough to fix them while your competitors are still explaining why they can’t be solved.