Wayne Gretzky and Business Advice
One question i often get … “What would be a good business to get into?”
Now of course, there are standard spiels … one should discover one’s passion (absolutely!!!), make a personal inventory of competencies and skills (must do!!), and research on existing viable markets (hmmm … debatable … which is the whole point of this blog entry).
You see, for inspiration on looking for great businesses to get into, I’d like to present great advice from Wayne Gretzky, world-renowned champion hockey player.
When asked what makes him such a great athlete, he was quick to share one of his philosophies :
“I skate to where the puck will be, not where it is.”
What a simple yet powerful insight! After all, most hockey players, they try to chase the puck, desperately skating to where it currently is. Wayne Gretzky invests his energy differently, using his instinctive foresight to pinpoint where the puck is headed, thereby intercepting it with relative ease.
Applied to the earlier question in this article, i’d like to then layer my advice on what businesses would be good to get into. And it’s a simple application and interpretation of the Gretzky hockey technique. ”
Go to where the money will be, not where it is.”
Look at where the market will be two, three years from now, and then start generating and building your ideas from there. It will be a relatively slow burn building up your startup, yes. But if you’ve diligently done your homework (a.k.a. market research), developed a great sense of the future, and set your mind on iteratively developing your business model – then the risk is minimized and the rewards reaped much greater.
From my own personal experience, the first entrepreneurial endeavour that Bam and I tried out was actually Call Center training for Near-Hires. We thought that we could give people a fighting chance to gain a relatively decently-paying job. Moreover, all the statistics were on our side. The Call Center industry was in full swing, reports and articles all pointed towards it being The Big Thing (a.k.a where the money was) Unfortunately, everybody else was thinking the same thing. And as we tried selling our services, we were often walled with the face that we were just one of several providers. As you can expect, that company died a natural death; But it did leave me with one important lesson.
Go to where the money will be, not where it is.
