Opportunity Beats Execution

Shaan shares a story about his first business venture out of college - a failed sushi restaurant chain - to illustrate why picking the right opportunity matters more than execution.

"When I was in college, our first idea straight out of college was a sushi restaurant chain. It was the same thing - we could be 10 out of 10 execution, 10 out of 10 creativity, but fundamentally restaurants are sort of like a 2 out of 10 opportunity. It's one of the worst types of businesses you can try to start.

A year in we were like 'Cool, we won this business plan competition, we can do this.' It's not that we can't do it - we're having success with our first location. But we had to remember this is just our first idea. Maybe we're more entrepreneurs than restaurateurs. Maybe this first idea is the one that got our wheels turning, but let's not commit more years to something once we recognize that this is a 2 out of 10 opportunity. We should just say 'Okay cool, let me just be a college kid, let me have my time back and put it on another better opportunity.'"