There are many industries where a hidden game is going on. Those inside the circle know the game and create strategies to be successful within that hidden game, while those outside the circle will fall victim to its traps. As an entrepreneur, hidden games represent opportunities to create a new way that is more transparent and capitalizes on the pent up frustration of the current game from a segment of customers. Here are three examples of hidden games.

Healthcare billing

As a patient, you go to a doctor for a procedure. The provider is incentivized to bill the insurance company as much as possible (they will likely not pay it all, but the provider bills a high amount just in case they do). The insurance company may have negotiated a rate or only pay a certain amount (they can show their customer “how much money they saved off the billed amount”, and they really don’t care too much because they will pass along whatever they don’t pay to the patient). Then the patient is left paying the difference. The patient also probably couldn’t get a clear answer of what the procedure would cost - or even if they got an estimate, they were told they are still liable for the final amount if it is different than the estimate. What other industries do you pay for services not knowing the final cost?

LinkedIn

You have probably seen the masters of creating LinkedIn followers. Pictures and videos, links and lots of comments below, opening lines to get people to click, non business posts, controversial statements of why someone else is wrong and they are right, etc. They know the game and how to play the LinkedIn algorithm. What if all the noise was hidden from view so you actually got to read quality content from sources you wanted to read? Furthermore, as part of the race to more followers, LinkedIn has grown beyond just a list of trusted connections. What if you could more easily search and find trusted connections versus connections you met once at a trade show ten years ago?

Job openings

You have probably heard the story of a friend who was looking for a job, applied online, but heard nothing. Or worse, the job candidate spent multiple rounds on phone/in-person interviews only to be told the job was not available or they were not a good fit. While there are job postings online, in most cases that is not the best way to get the job. Getting referrals into a company is far more powerful, but many people lack access to referrals. Some job postings are just to satisfy a requirement but the real candidate has already been pre-selected so the job is not really available. Furthermore, many great candidates are unaware of great jobs because the communication from hiring manager to job seeker is multiple steps away and never makes it there. What if you could better match talented and referred candidates from trusted sources?

For each of these areas, what if there was a different game? I see great opportunities in each area for talented entrepreneurs to start a business with a new way of doing things.