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If you're starting in business from zero, you may have stumbled upon opinions such as:
But that's just theoretical potential. It sounds like a guarantee but real potential depends on the entrepreneur, not what theoretically works best for an average person.
For example, I tried countless business models over the years and the only business model that worked for me was a model that is almost proven NOT to make any money (book publishing). An average author makes like $200 a year. And yet, this ended up generating seven figures for me, while running theoretically "better" businesses like productized services never worked well for me.
So I've been thinking about this recently: should you really follow such advice and assume that theoretical potential is real potential achievable by you?
If you're an outgoing salesman with some tech knowledge you'll probably do great in enterprise B2B SaaS sales (a "perfect" business) and not so well running an e-commerce brand behind the scenes. But if you're an introvert with zero social life, should you force yourself to adapt behaviors and develop skills you don't possess just to theoretically have a stronger business in B2B rather than do something, in theory, less likely to succeed but more fitting for your personality?
How do you assess this while not using it as a rationalization to avoid hard choices? Do you ever think about founder/business or founder/market fit?
Because it's possible that what the introvert needs to do is get better at sales. But it's also equally possible that the same introvert should follow their natural skills and perhaps code an AI tool without ever calling a single prospect or do something completely else that in theory has very little business potential compared to the "ideal" choices.
This discussion may also come back to the argument "think how you can help others, not build a business that satisfies your needs" but then one can argue that if you hate your business because it doesn't fit your personality you won't help people much, regardless of how great in theory the business is.
- build a local business, there's less competition, more demand, and if you pick up the phone, you'll already ahead,
- build a B2B business, it's easier to sell to businesses and sales are more sticky,
- copy an existing service and make it slightly better, don't invent anything new.
But that's just theoretical potential. It sounds like a guarantee but real potential depends on the entrepreneur, not what theoretically works best for an average person.
For example, I tried countless business models over the years and the only business model that worked for me was a model that is almost proven NOT to make any money (book publishing). An average author makes like $200 a year. And yet, this ended up generating seven figures for me, while running theoretically "better" businesses like productized services never worked well for me.
So I've been thinking about this recently: should you really follow such advice and assume that theoretical potential is real potential achievable by you?
If you're an outgoing salesman with some tech knowledge you'll probably do great in enterprise B2B SaaS sales (a "perfect" business) and not so well running an e-commerce brand behind the scenes. But if you're an introvert with zero social life, should you force yourself to adapt behaviors and develop skills you don't possess just to theoretically have a stronger business in B2B rather than do something, in theory, less likely to succeed but more fitting for your personality?
How do you assess this while not using it as a rationalization to avoid hard choices? Do you ever think about founder/business or founder/market fit?
Because it's possible that what the introvert needs to do is get better at sales. But it's also equally possible that the same introvert should follow their natural skills and perhaps code an AI tool without ever calling a single prospect or do something completely else that in theory has very little business potential compared to the "ideal" choices.
This discussion may also come back to the argument "think how you can help others, not build a business that satisfies your needs" but then one can argue that if you hate your business because it doesn't fit your personality you won't help people much, regardless of how great in theory the business is.
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