Whenever you’re in a mass-market business, you face pressure from rapid information sharing—even if you find an edge, it’s gone within days.
And if you’re running a niche business but aren’t the leader in your细分 segment, you’ll struggle with insufficient orders.
Like it or not, this is the trend.
Jack Ma says there should be no middlemen taking a cut, which really means he's the only one taking the cut. He says doing business shouldn't be hard anywhere in the world—meaning everyone else should drop out of the middleman business so he can do it alone, and do it easily.
It's possible, but only if four conditions are met.
1. You have the ability to design customized, à la carte products.
2. You have access to quality materials and a talented team.
3. Your clients trust you.
4. There's an information asymmetry—clients can't operate without you—so you can earn the spread, the information gap premium.
The biggest advantage of games is that they transcend time and space—you can save and reload. Life doesn't allow do-overs, but games do. Through repeated attempts, your experience and understanding of the world keep growing, which for young students is hardly a bad thing.
This is also an unwritten rule of life: every failure builds experience you can draw on when you get back up, rather than starting from scratch.