Fishing for opportunity? Across all entrepreneurial pursuits, The Rule of Moby Dicks, Mackerels, and Minnows applies. Use it to help you allocate your time and resources to ensure that you are never starved for growth.
Think of Moby Dicks as transformative once-in-a-lifetime targets like the giant national retail account you want to land or the big funder who can also be a powerful strategic partner. If you spent all of your time hunting only for Moby Dicks, pursuing just the impossible deals with no guarantee of materializing, you might never be able to feed yourself – and could eventually starve. On the other hand, if you strictly played it safe, going after only the tiniest, easy-to-catch accounts – call them Minnows – you might also wind up with a grumbling stomach, staving off hunger from living snack to snack.
Right in between Moby Dicks and Minnows are the Mackerels that provide consistent, filling food. Still, when it comes to advancing your entrepreneurial pursuits, you cannot be sure that you’ll catch a Mackerel every day. If you do reel one in, it may meaningfully bolster your enterprise, but it’s unlikely to catalyze breakthroughs.
The right way to fish for opportunity is to establish a balanced diet of all three.
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