My First Million
The best business ideas come from noticing what's working and doing it better, faster, or for a different audience.
Industry Expert Blindness
Industry experts often miss breakthrough opportunities because their deep knowledge creates limiting assumptions about what's possible.
Decision Rule
When evaluating new opportunities, consider whether your expertise is creating blind spots rather than just providing insights.
How It Works
Experts accumulate 'scar tissue' from past failures and become constrained by 'how things are' rather than 'how things could be.' Beginners lack these limitations.
Failure Modes
Rejecting ideas that violate industry conventional wisdom
Over-weighting past failures when evaluating new opportunities
Focusing on technical barriers rather than market possibilities
Assuming customer behavior won't change
Example Decision
“Two newsletter industry veterans pass on investing in Beehive because they 'know' the market is too small, while the founder with fresh perspective builds it into a successful company by seeing possibilities they missed.”
Related Knowledge
The way you do one thing is the way you do everything
Pay attention to how people handle small details as indicators of their general competence and integrity
Fix-It Theory
A customer service framework where fixing mistakes creates higher customer loyalty than perfect service from the start.
Paul Graham's Animal Test
An entrepreneur evaluation framework that asks: 'Can you describe this person as an animal?
Hold Me Back Guy Strategy
A face-saving mechanism where someone makes aggressive threats while ensuring they have an excuse not to follow through, maintaining reputation without actual risk.
Write investor updates that build trust and get help
Investors understand your business health, offer help proactively, and maintain confidence in your team even during tough times.
Build exceptional SaaS product through customer obsession
Customers become advocates, feature requests get implemented quickly, and users can't imagine using anything else.