Note: These views do not represent those of my employer. This piece was composed entirely in my personal time, using my own resources.

This Saturday morning, between 7 and 8 a.m., I jogged past the Sunnyvale Farmers Market — it’s a small theatre of capitalism where everything smells faintly of fruit, ambition, and the anxiety of unsold stock.

To most people, it’s a weekend ritual, a pleasant way to start the day with local produce and polite small talk. To me, it’s a silent masterclass in business instinct. Oldest form of entrepreneurship, tested in sunlight and human impatience.

Around 6:30 a.m., the choreography begins. Some farmers have already completed their setups — stalls symmetrical, tables stable, every crate angled for visual appeal. Others are still unpacking, crates half-open, signs unpinned. But even in the chaos, a pattern emerges: the smart ones never leave the front unmanned. They always have someone standing there, greeting early walkers, making eye contact.

Ten minutes later, when I loop back, the difference is striking. The ones still perfecting their displays are yet to make a sale. The ones who started imperfect but available are already transacting. It’s a pattern older than algorithms — commerce rewards the visible, not the virtuous.

Among these sellers, one stall always draws me in — the ghee man. He’s an artisan of sorts, proud of his process. He makes four varieties of ghee in different volumes, all through a slow, traditional method that he describes with quiet reverence. His product is exceptional — rich, aromatic, and distinctly homemade.

But lately, he’s been experimenting. He’s started infusing ghee into chocolates and coffee. He calls it a “summer experiment”. I call it a distraction. We’re way past summer.

Last weekend, when I stopped by, the variety I liked was out of stock. Completely gone. The other three were there — along with his coffee and chocolates — but not the one I came for. I hesitated, chatted, and eventually bought nothing. Except, of course, a cup of coffee. Not because I wanted it, but because that’s all he had available.

He mentioned the chocolates were sourced from Kerala. The keralite in me then asked “Which part of Kerala? My roots are in Palakkad!” He didn’t know. Bummer. Knowing that detail would have made for an amazing conversation. Maybe I would have bought another flavor of ghee who knows.

Novelty was abundant; reliability was extinct.

If I were advising him, I’d tell him to hold his experiments and look outside his stall.

The season itself is a clue. In winter, that same aromatic ghee could easily sell as a skincare essential — a natural moisturizer that people could apply on their skin and feel the warmth, texture, and smell directly. He doesn’t need to change the product. He just needs to change its context.

Every marketplace, whether online or on asphalt, runs on the same primitive rules. Customers forgive bad design, long queues, or even a slightly rude vendor. But they never forgive absence. A missing product kills intent faster than bad pricing.

I sometimes think these sellers could even hire a few shoppers as actors — bags in hand, pretending to compare tomatoes, occasionally paying cash, creating the illusion of motion. Because nothing signals success like a queue, even a fake one. It’s the oldest growth hack in the world.

And yet, the most authentic sellers don’t even need that. They just open early, smile often, and stay available. The rest are still adjusting tables.

Week after week, as I jog past, the same truth repeats itself: the market doesn’t reward the best craftsman, the most ethical producer, or the most innovative mind. It rewards the one who is simply there when the customer walks by.

In the grand marketplace of business, absence is the only sin customers never forgive.

Availability, boring as it sounds, is what keeps the world turning — and the cash drawer opening.