Start-up of You

For anything desirable in the world, be it customers, jobs or attractive spouses, there is always competition. Just as a start-up must find a specific edge over its competitors, you too must focus on finding your own competitive advantage.

A strong competitive advantage should emerge from the intersection of three forces:

Your assets are what you have now. They range from hard assets like the cash in your wallet to soft assets like your skills, experience and education. They develop over time, and their strength is always relative to the competition. Thus you should prefer areas and markets where your assets shine brighter than those of your competitors.

The second force consists of your aspirations and values. These should reflect your core values and your vision for the future. Some might call them your passions, and they are integral to success. The guy who is passionate about what he is doing will inevitably outwork and outlast someone who is not.

Finally, market realities are the demands of the world around you. Your competitive advantage will be useless if no one is interested in it. On the other hand, the right competitive advantage can let you ride the very same market trends and technological shifts that threaten other people.

For each individual, the three forces above are not only constantly changing, but also fundamentally unknowable. For example, few of us truly know what we are passionate about. Thus the best you can do is to make hypotheses about these three forces, and adjust them as you go along.