Almost two years ago, a mega successful entrepreneur shared with me some wisdom that I have grown to appreciate more with time. He told me:
“From the outside looking in, you never see opportunities. But jump into the ring and get into the fight. That’s when you find opportunities.”
Notice how he didn’t say “Find opportunities then jump into the ring.” In order to identify and understand the real possibilities/risks/challenges/rewards of any opportunity, you need information and actionable insights. Typically, this is not information you can find in a research report, outlined in a 10-K or 10-Q, discussed in a news article, or highlighted at an industry conference. Although you may find some of the information you are looking for there, you will also often find information which is misleading, inaccurate, false, lacking context, lacking sufficient detail, and or incomplete — useless for identifying real opportunities and executing against them.
Opportunities and real insights/information only come to those who put their money and or time on the line. This means constantly engaging in actions like pitching to potential clients, getting pricing from suppliers, making painful mistakes, shipping out products, losing money on some deals or projects, making money on some deals or projects, etc. The longer you stay in the market, the more information you will gather about the market and the more opportunities you will discover. You have to be in the market to know the market.
