You Need to Understand First.
By the time everybody agrees there’s an opportunity, the opportunity has already changed.
Years ago, I came across a story about a Black barber in the UK.
He couldn’t find many barbershops catering to his demographic, so instead of waiting for the market to change, he went mobile.
That caught my attention.
Not because mobile barbering was completely new.
Because it solved a problem I was already trying to solve.
I didn’t want to sit inside a barbershop all day waiting for somebody to walk through the door.
I had a family.
I wanted to cut when I wanted.
I wanted to control my schedule.
I wanted to set my own prices.
Most importantly, I wanted to work on my own terms.
So when I saw somebody doing something similar somewhere else, I didn’t look at it as an interesting story.
I looked at it as a blueprint.
If he could make that model work there, why couldn’t I make my version work here?
I Didn’t Invent It. I Studied It.
Around that same period, the barber industry was already changing.
Appointments were becoming more prevalent.
Platforms like TheCut and StyleSeat were helping barbers, stylists, nail technicians and other professionals manage appointments and market themselves differently.
I wanted to understand how it worked.
So I paid for both.
And I didn’t particularly want to.
For about four or five months, I paid to exist inside their infrastructure.
But I wasn’t only paying for scheduling software.
I was buying access to their playbook.
I studied how they marketed.
How they communicated.
How they wrote their emails.
How they attracted customers.
How they structured appointments.
How they positioned professionals.
I copied templates.
I studied tactics.
I paid attention to everything I could.
I was basically a spy.
Then I took what I needed.
I eventually created my own systems that allowed me to accomplish many of the same things for free or at a fraction of the cost.
Years later, I still use pieces of what I learned during those few months when I need to generate business.
That’s something I’ve carried into everything else I’ve done.
Sometimes the thing you’re paying for isn’t really the product.
You’re paying for proximity to information you don’t understand yet.
Learn it.
Take what applies.
Build your own system.
But I’ve Also Been on the Other Side
Real estate taught me the opposite lesson.
I saw that opportunity too.
I knew the market was hot.
I knew there was money being made.
I knew I should get into the industry.
And I dragged my feet.
Why?
I hate school.
I don’t like having my time controlled.
Then I started thinking about everything that came with becoming a Realtor.
I’d have to learn the laws.
Contracts.
Homes.
Different features of properties.
I’d be responsible for helping people make one of the biggest purchases of their lives.
It was new.
And instead of moving while learning, I started thinking about everything I didn’t know.
So I waited.
Eventually, I got into real estate.
I still made money.
But by the time I officially entered, the market was already cooling.
I had recognized the opportunity.
I just didn’t position myself when I recognized it.
There’s a difference.
You can correctly predict where something is going and still miss the best part of the opportunity because you waited for yourself to feel ready.
Being Early Doesn’t Mean Being Reckless
This is where people get it wrong.
Being early doesn’t mean jumping on every new platform.
Buying every new asset.
Downloading every AI tool.
Starting a business because somebody made $100,000 doing it.
That’s not foresight.
That’s chasing shit.
I’ve done enough of that too.
There’s always another opportunity.
Another technology.
Another investment.
Another platform.
Another person telling you this is the thing that’s going to change everything.
You can’t chase all of it.
The goal isn’t to move first.
The goal is to understand first.
There’s a massive difference.
Study → Understand → Position → Execute
That’s the filter I’ve developed.
Study
Before changing everything, figure out what actually happened.
What problem does this solve?
What’s changing?
Who’s benefiting?
Who’s losing?
What’s hype and what’s actually useful?
Understand
Go deeper than headlines.
Understand enough that you don’t need somebody else’s fear or excitement to tell you what to think.
Because that’s where conviction comes from.
Not confidence.
Competence.
Position
Once you understand the opportunity, ask a different question:
Does this fit me?
Mobile barbering fit the life I wanted.
It gave me control over my time.
It gave me control over my pricing.
It solved a problem I actually had.
That’s different from chasing something simply because it’s growing.
Execute
Eventually you have to move.
You can research yourself right out of an opportunity.
I learned that with real estate.
There comes a point where another video, book, podcast, thread or conversation isn’t preparation anymore.
It’s procrastination wearing glasses.
Winter Is Always Coming
Every market has a winter.
Bitcoin has cycles.
The stock market has cycles.
Technology has cycles.
Businesses have cycles.
Industries change.
Platforms change.
Game of Thrones had it right:
Winter is coming.
Something eventually happens that scares everybody.
A security breach.
A market crash.
A new technology.
A regulatory change.
AI starts replacing certain tasks.
Privacy becomes a bigger concern.
And suddenly everybody starts running around changing everything.
That’s when understanding matters.
Because uninformed people react.
Informed people investigate.
We’ve seen it with AI.
People immediately started talking about AI taking everyone’s jobs.
And yes, certain jobs and tasks have been affected.
But another question was available:
How can I learn this technology well enough that it makes me more valuable at what I already do?
That’s positioning.
The same principle applies to investing, privacy, cybersecurity, business and almost anything else.
When everybody starts screaming, you don’t automatically follow them.
You figure out what the hell is actually happening.
Then you move accordingly.
Information Is an Advantage
Think about why scams work.
The scammer often understands something the victim doesn’t.
They understand the technology.
They understand human behavior.
They understand urgency.
They understand how to manipulate someone’s fear or greed.
The victim doesn’t understand the environment well enough to recognize what’s happening.
That’s an information gap.
And information gaps exist in legitimate opportunities too.
The person who understands a new industry before everyone else has an advantage.
The person who understands a platform while everybody else is trying to figure it out has an advantage.
I saw that with TikTok.
Early TikTok was different.
You could find a trending sound.
See somebody else’s format working.
Create your version.
And the algorithm could push the hell out of it.
Creativity mattered, but you could get away with far more imitation because the platform wasn’t saturated the way it eventually became.
The opportunity didn’t disappear.
The advantage changed.
That’s what happens when everybody catches up.
Before Consensus
This is what I’ve learned from getting it right and getting it wrong.
Being early doesn’t mean moving before everybody else.
It means understanding before everybody else, then having enough conviction to move before consensus.
You don’t need to know everything.
I didn’t know everything about mobile barbering.
I definitely didn’t know everything about real estate.
And nobody knows exactly where AI, Bitcoin, social media or the next technology will ultimately go.
That’s not the requirement.
You don’t need certainty to move.
You need enough understanding to make uncertainty worth the risk.
Study.
Understand.
Position.
Then execute.
Because eventually everybody else sees it too.
The articles get written.
The influencers start talking.
Your friends start asking about it.
Companies pile in.
The opportunity becomes socially acceptable.
And everybody finally agrees:
“This might actually be something.”
Good.
But now you’re not early.
You’re standing in line.
Blueprint your sovereignty.
—Drew
