My First Million
The best business ideas come from noticing what's working and doing it better, faster, or for a different audience.
Energy Flow as Business Signal
The amount of personal energy a business opportunity gives you versus drains from you serves as a reliable indicator of opportunity quality and strategic alignment
Decision Rule
Pursue opportunities that consistently give you energy even during difficult periods. Consider pivoting from opportunities that persistently drain energy despite your best efforts.
How It Works
Right opportunities align with your skills, market timing, and genuine demand, creating positive feedback loops that generate energy. Wrong opportunities create constant friction and resistance that drain energy even when making progress.
Failure Modes
Confusing short-term difficulty with wrong direction
Ignoring energy signals due to sunk cost fallacy
Misreading temporary exhaustion as fundamental misalignment
Using energy levels as excuse to avoid necessary but difficult work
Example Decision
“Eric spent 3-4 years on jewelry retail concept that felt like 'pushing water uphill' until recognizing persistent energy drain as signal to stop, while successful brand concepts felt energizing even during challenging phases.”
Related Knowledge
Consumers buy products they have to buy and want products they want to buy - the goal is to turn 'ha
Focus on emotional and aesthetic dimensions of functional products rather than just improving function
Cultural Shift Detection Framework
A systematic approach to finding business opportunities by identifying cultural shifts or macro trends that have impacte
Creative Tension Framework
A method for creating compelling products by bringing together two disparate or opposing concepts to generate creative t
One Change Rule
A principle that limits innovation to changing only one major element of an existing product or service to maximize prob
Familiar-Novel Intersection Framework
A framework for positioning products at the optimal intersection between familiar (easy to understand) and novel (differ
Generate actionable product ideas through international travel and observation
Return from trip with 2-3 validated product concepts that can be immediately prototyped and tested with retailers/consum