The Startup Ideas Podcast
The best businesses are built at the intersection of emerging technology, community, and real human needs.
By the time growth tactics are packaged into courses, the arbitrage opportunity has already been exploited and is no longer effective
The Reasoning
Market inefficiencies get discovered by practitioners first, exploited by early adopters, then commoditized through education, eliminating the original advantage
What Needs to Be True
- Information spreads from practitioners to educators with time delay
- Market efficiency increases as more participants use same tactics
- Course creators prioritize teaching over continued execution
- Students implement outdated strategies without adaptation
Counterargument
Some evergreen principles remain valuable even when widely known, and course creators may update strategies in real-time
What Would Change This View
Evidence of course-taught strategies continuing to work at scale after wide adoption, or real-time strategy updates from active practitioners
Implications for Builders
Avoid paying for growth courses in competitive markets
Learn from practitioners still actively executing strategies
Focus on finding your own arbitrage opportunities
Adapt widely-known tactics to unexploited niches
Example Application
“Instead of buying a Facebook ads course, analyze what successful dropshippers are currently doing and identify underexploited ad placements they haven't moved to yet”