A simple idea most people would probably dismiss turned into a business everyone wants to look at.

The more I work with different brands, the more I realize that some of the most obvious opportunities appear when you really study the category. I recently discovered Cook & Pan, a brand selling pans. The founder simply looked around and noticed how most pans and kitchenware are black, grey or metallic. He thought: how about making this more fun? What if we add color?

It is one of those ideas that sounds almost too simple. The kind of thing people dismiss with “that’s silly,” “who cares what color a pan is?” or “if this was such a good idea, somebody would already be doing it.”

Yet the product stands out immediately. When I talk about what I do, I often mention Cook & Pan as one of the clearest examples of how a single strategic decision can influence an entire brand. Product, identity, photography, communication, everything starts with the same idea: kitchenware doesn’t need to look boring. And it’s the only example I use where people consistently pull out their phone mid-conversation to look at the green pan.

The name is not sexy, but it is easy to remember and immediately tells you what they sell. It doesn’t need to do the differentiating because the product already does that. The brand identity simply supports the product-first strategy instead of competing with it.

The founder told me that in 12 months the brand grew nearly 10x in revenue. 10x, selling pans.

What I like about Cook & Pan is that the opportunity wasn’t some revolutionary new technology or complicated business model. It came from looking at a very established category and questioning something everybody else seemed to accept.

Pans don’t have to look like pans. Sometimes that is enough to make a dent in a crowded category.