Follow the hype, die with the crowd
Genuineness and specific knowledge
Power law matters
You live in an unfair world where 90%+ of businesses will ultimately fail, and the very few winners reap all the rewards. This is the power-law, and eventually, you will face this reality in your own market. Does that mean you have to become as big as Google to be worth something? Not really, but your market will likely obey the power-law over the long term, and you would prefer to be in the winning spot rather than sharing the leftovers with the crowd. Now, why am I bothering you with this? The answer is quite straightforward: It's the absolute best argument to stop following trends and attempting to disrupt giant markets when there are extraordinarily profitable and underserved niches out there. A direct corollary of this law is that you will fail if you are merely following a hype and not pursuing your genuine interests. Nobody can beat you at being yourself, and you won't beat anybody at being someone else. Does that sound Instagrammish? Influencers would never promote originality1, so don't blame me for those words of wisdom.
If you have any ties to social media, you've probably had the chance to encounter various online experts. You know the type—those individuals who are AI gurus on one day and Web3 investors the next; just suggest to them that the next big trend is selling connected baguette bread, and they'll eagerly update their profile to include a French flag and weave a story about how they’ve always aspired to create e-bread with connected flour. As I write this, I find myself tempted to call out some specific LinkedIn profiles I know personally, offering advice on how to be a competent engineer. I noticed you added "AI Enthusiast" to your profile a few months back.
Now, let me explain why such individuals will never make it as an industry leader or an established brand. Instead, pursuing your genuine interests and selecting the best trends to enhance your tool stack is the key to becoming a reference.
Genuineness is underrated
Talking has never been cheaper, and social media has paved the way for all sorts of scammy experts as well as fantastic self-taught individuals. When considering this side-effects of globalization in the small-business landscape, here is an immediate consequence: It's never been so easy to fake it before you actually make it. And in most cases, to merely fake it because you are nothing but a tech vagabond selling garbage tips for a few likes and don't even want to build a real business solving a real problem2.
Don't get me wrong; it's totally fine to “fake”3 it if you are building in parallel, as it's a great way to take the temperature of your market. However, as an entrepreneur, you are naturally inundated with hype followers and wave surfers trying to convince you to pivot and add whatever trendy word to your project: I have already met dozens of founders attempting to build up AI narratives as if it's going to solve all their initial problems they categorically refuse to address.
Follow the hype, die with the crowd.
Here comes the most common mistake many entrepreneurs make when starting their companies: they look for a trendy topic instead of following their genuine interest. That might sound romantic, and some people may tell you the opposite, but in my experience, you just can't maintain the pace of hard work and dedication if you are working on something you don't genuinely like. It doesn't have to be the core theme of your company, but at least you must love something.
When you follow your genuine interest, and not some temporary hype, you can go the extra mile at no cost, as what feels like work to your competitors feels like play to you. Going the extra mile every day will have a significant compounded effect over the long term, and within a few years, you will have outpaced your competitors because you are in the right spot, where you just need to be yourself and apply your specific knowledge and your passion for your craft to make things happen..
Good caramel vs. bad algorithms
Let me conclude this article with a personal experience. I enjoy sharing real stories with you, my dear reader, and I feel as though you are already familiar with them because I know you all personally (I don’t have many subscribers). However, one day, when I have a million followers and the power-law works in my favor, you will tell newcomers that you've tasted my salted butter caramel. Yes, the story I want to share is about food. I started my corporate career back in 2017, working as a mathematician and quantitative analyst for investment banks in NYC. Fucking Wall Street mate!
As I mentioned in another article, my job was to create indicators so traders could see their foolish biases. I was essentially building “Black Swan proof portfolio” models and trying to model extreme deviations. Discussing the naivety of most math applied in large systemic banks is beyond this article's scope, but trust me when I say I will never be shocked by massive crashes that go against the bets made by mega-teams full of hotshots from top-tier universities. Most of their models are complete jokes, though jokes are generally funnier than Markowitz portfolio theory and the relative strength index.
After a few years of writing complicated equations and feeling ignored by most of my bosses4, I decided to create my own company. Back in 2019, it would have been natural, considering my math and computer science background, to go all-in on a tech startup. Instead, I started a caramel brand, selling salted butter caramel to local restaurants and grocery stores. My market analysis was quite simple: I stumbled upon a very average-tasting $25 caramel can in a store and decided I could do much better, much cheaper. And so it began; I bought a big machine to pressure-sterilize my caramel jars and started cold-approaching restaurants to sell my product. The strategy was simple: I would go to my favorite bars and restaurants and offer them a plate of crepes with a jar of salted butter caramel. If they liked it, they could call me back.
After just a few weeks, I began to generate solid leads and sold a few of my caramel jars, met some food and beverage incubators for independent creators, and... got kicked out of the country because I couldn't renew my visa. I came to a solid conclusion: I was much better at selling caramel than building silly algorithms for even sillier Wall Street bros, and I was spending much of my time reading up on FDA regulations and caramel secrets. I was following my genuine interest instead of what was supposed to be the best for my career based on trendy topics. Food is one genuine path for me, and by the way, I proudly own the best restaurant in Medellín—no debate about that!
At that time, being an AI-savvy quantitative analyst working in finance would sound like a treasure trove, but I found it so boring - mostly because of the atmosphere - I quickly realized I would never be any good at it. At some point, if I had created a company focused on AI for finance, I would have been crushed by competitors, and the power-law would have trapped me in its darkest corners. When you're a mathematician and find more joy in cooking caramel than writing code for a good salary, you know there's a disconnect somewhere: I wasn't following my genuine interest, and I wouldn't have loved anything about the journey, except for the paycheck.
Don’t follow hypes, follow your genuine interest.
Cherry pick only the necessary things in the trends.
If somebody is enthusiastic about AI in march and Crypto in may, then delete their profile and send them a message.
Actually, don’t insult them, but delete them.
If you want to pivot every six months and your company was Web3 and now is ChatGPT, then you would better send me a message, I need help for cooking caramel.
If you think you are too smart for cooking caramel because your company is a Web3 or ChatGPT AI company, then remember my descendants will be able to send caramel in 100 years as it's timeless, whereas your tech will fade away before your wedding. And then you will buy my Caramel to feel better when you are single, and outdated in the tech world. Who’s laughing now?
Keep the faith (except for McKinsey consultants, ain’t no faith or love for ya’, just sadness and Excel tables).
Love (except for MBAs)
Influencers are idiots, by the way.
All those dudes working “with” startups but never building one or investing in one.No great ideas came from a conference room, but many died out there, as Phil Knight said.
Faking it is not the right term, it’s more pre-selling … and not fooling your potential customers
Calling my boss a bad trader turned out to be a poor strategy, socially-wise.