The Theory Guy Never Wins in Business

I recently met up with an undisclosed wantrepreneur in business (someone who wants to do this full time, but doesn't have the means) and it has greatly disappointed me with what he was saying. The main question he presented to us during the meeting was "Who do you think could use this product I just built?".

What am I supposed to say to that? The truth is you need a targeted user before you build your product and hopefully a cash commitment as well. Playing the "is this product useful" game is very tough and a pitfall I see all too often. 

Thinking about it today I've realized that all of my successful friends in business HATE reading. Even billionaires may read 3 hours max a day (Mark Cuban for example), but take action on their company at least 8 hours a day. 

The theoretical guy never wins in business and I'm not saying you can't predict anything, the main point I'm making is that the winners are the ones that take more action Period. Get in contact with your client!!!

If you have an idea, don't ask your friends, or build it and then ask what you can use it for because its cool. Go to a person you think is the target demographic or  ask what your own problems are and solve them while also getting a cash commitment (You can build a non-profitable billion dollar site later).

No matter what aspect of business we you look at, the theory guy still loses. Marketing people for examples can only guess so much, until they TEST (important word everything you do in business should be a test) an idea to see if it really works. The faster you can  get anything live in the field the better, this is one of those business sins people talk about, yet still commit. Forget months of getting your product out, we got our first user in 2 weeks (one of the beauties of B2B, B2C on the other hand is still a huge headache for me).

So here I am getting this post out in the field ASAP, let me know what you think lets talk about all the theory we've seen, how does it still exist in this "lean startup" world? Perhaps we should go from lean to anorexic startup. I've never heard of a company launching too fast as Paul Graham says very few do and so far I know none. Once you're in the field you are forcing yourself to fix up the product before you get embarrassed anyways as I'm sure I'll edit this post later.

Now don't get me wrong I'm not saying thinking is bad at all, or theorizing is bad; I'm ultimately trying to make the point that action is the most valuable thing you can do. Action gives you deeper insight on your theories. Even the guy I mentioned in the beginning of the article built something, which is much better than him giving me an idea of a product with no audience; now he has a product with no audience, by taking action he can get somewhere. :-)

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