Posted by You have probably already killed one of your best ideas. Not because it was bad. Because it sounded too strange, too small, or too unlikely to work, so you quietly let it go before giving it a proper chance.
Most people who are trying to build an online business do this at some point, whether they are just starting out or already running something. A new opportunity turns up, dressed in something that does not look like success yet, and the sensible part of your brain talks you out of it.
That instinct can feel like good judgement. Sometimes it is. But plenty of the biggest online businesses alive today were, at one point, dismissed outright by people who should have known better.
If you want to get better at spotting new opportunities in your own business, it helps to understand why dismissing them so quickly becomes a habit, and how to catch yourself doing it before a good one slips past you.
The Experts Got It Wrong, Over And Over
A competitor once looked at a scrappy online bookstore in 1997 and said plainly that it would not cut it in the long term. That bookstore became Amazon.
An analyst in 2002 questioned whether a young search company’s business could ever match its technology. That company was Google.
Microsoft’s own chief executive laughed off a new phone in 2007, pricing it at $500 and predicting it would never capture serious market share. That phone was the iPhone.
Even eBay, in its early days, asked people to post a cheque to a complete stranger and then wait for a purchase to arrive. It sounded absurd. Millions of people tried it anyway.
And when one founder first described his idea for strangers renting spare rooms from other strangers, somebody told him: I hope that is not the only idea you are working on. That idea became Airbnb.
None of these people were foolish. They were simply applying ordinary judgement to something that had not yet proven itself. That is exactly the trap most of us fall into with our own new opportunities.
Why We Do The Same Thing To Ourselves
It is easy to spot bad judgement in hindsight, when someone else made the call. It is much harder to spot it in yourself, in real time, when the idea belongs to you.
An idea that has not proven itself yet will always look a little odd. That is not a sign it is wrong. It is simply a sign nobody has finished it yet.
When you are weighing up a new opportunity, you are not really comparing it against a track record. There is no track record. You are comparing it against your own comfort with uncertainty, and that comfort is usually quite low.
So the opportunity gets filed under ‘maybe later,’ and later rarely comes. I have shared a few more of these working habits in other articles I have shared recently, if this pattern sounds familiar.
The Shop Floor To The Computer
I did not look like someone about to start an online business. I started working in a shop at eleven, and years later became one of the youngest regional managers in a national supermarket chain.
From there I moved into a large multinational, ended up a director of nine companies, then ran a chemical business trading in 28 countries for six years.
None of that pointed towards sitting at a laptop. If you had told my colleagues in that chemical business that I would retire at 57 and end up promoting somebody else’s online products, most of them would have reacted the same way those analysts reacted to an online bookstore, or a $500 phone.
I retired to help look after my grandchildren, and that is when I started looking for a business I could run from a computer. It did not look like an obvious next step for someone with my background. I found Nick James’s affiliate marketing business in 2007, and that odd-looking decision is still part of my working life today.
An idea that has not proven itself yet will always look a little odd.
The opportunity that fit me was not the one that looked sensible on paper. It was the one that actually worked, once I stopped waiting for it to look sensible first.
Three Questions That Catch The Habit In Time
You cannot remove the instinct to doubt a new idea. But you can slow it down long enough to check whether it is judgement, or just discomfort wearing judgement’s clothes.
Ask yourself three things before you dismiss new opportunities.
First, am I dismissing this because of evidence, or because it is unfamiliar? Unfamiliar is not the same as unworkable.
Second, would I give this idea to somebody else and expect them to succeed with it? If the answer is yes, the problem is not the idea.
Third, what is the smallest version of this I could actually try? You rarely need to bet everything to find out whether something has legs.
Those three questions will not turn every odd idea into a winner. Some are not worth pursuing. But they stop you from quietly burying a good one simply because it made you uncomfortable for an afternoon.
Give The Idea A Fair Trial
The businesses mentioned above were not saved by confidence. They were saved by somebody deciding to try the thing anyway, while plenty of sensible people were telling them not to bother.
You do not need to ignore caution altogether. You need a system that stops caution from making every decision on its own.
Write the idea down. Note why it makes you uneasy. Then ask the three questions above before you decide anything.
Most of the time, that short pause is enough to tell a genuinely weak idea from one that simply has not had its turn yet.
Where This Fits Into Building The Rest Of Your Business
Spotting new opportunities is only the first step. Turning it into something that actually earns money takes a bit more structure than instinct alone.
If you want help with that part, Nick James put together Serious About Six Figures, which walks through building a proper online income rather than chasing one idea at a time. It is worth a look if you want somewhere to take the next opportunity you decide is worth keeping.
The Habit Worth Breaking
Every person running an online business has, at some point, talked themselves out of something that could have worked. That is not a failure of character. It is just how caution behaves when it meets something new.
The difference between the people who built the businesses mentioned above and everyone who doubted them was not confidence, or luck, or even a better idea.
It was a willingness to try the odd-looking thing before it had proven anything at all.
Next time one of your own ideas feels a little strange, do not file it under ‘maybe later.’ Ask the three questions, give it a fair trial, and see where it goes.
Wishing you well with whatever idea you decide to back next.
Jim