Nobody Knows the Future

+

“How did you know Instacart would be a big success?” I asked a VC who was one of the first investors. His answer surprised me…

“I didn’t.”

I sat there slack-jawed.

“They had a good product, they were expanding quickly from neighborhood to neighborhood in San Francisco.” he continued. “It seemed like a good bet.”

I had this conversation a couple of years ago.

Until then, I always thought someone had the answers. The big time investors, the unicorn founders, they had to know…right?

Turns out, nobody knows the future — in business or anything else.

The best you can do is make a series of educated guesses.

For an investor, that means writing checks into dozens of companies. For a founder, it means shipping product until something hits.

Realizing that nobody knows the future is incredibly freeing.

You don’t have to feel like the dumb guy who doesn’t have the answers, because no one does!

At that point, your guess is as good as the next guy’s. Keep taking shots and hope for the best.

So the next time somebody tells you, “that will never work,” ignore them.

They have absolutely no way of knowing that. The only way to find out if your idea will work is to pursue it.