Clearly seeing the present

There's this quote from a well-known VC investor, Matt Cohler, that says "Our job is not to see the future, it's to see the present very clearly." One can debate how well this applies to investing and venture capital more specifically, but I think it's spot on when it comes to entrepreneurship.

You can think of different types of businesses being on a spectrum from the most technologically ground-breaking to the least technologically ground-breaking. On one end you have the VC-backed, cutting edge companies, doing truly original things and on the other end you have the low-tech, Sweaty Startup style businesses that Nick Huber talks about. Nick always recommends that people don't start tech companies since they will be competing against the best of the best, while on the other end of the spectrum, you can apply a few technical advances that you've seen from other companies and use those to compete against your competition who are lagging behind.

I would take this even further to say that you don't need to do a sweaty, services-based business to take advantage of this effect. You just need to be really observant of companies that are doing ground-breaking things today in the present, and see how you can apply those things to your business, no matter where you are on the technological spectrum. That being said, you probably don't want to be all the way out on the cutting edge, you can leave that territory to the Matt Cohler's of the world who are willing to live with that kind of risk.