I still don’t know anything

Some people happen upon my writing and contact me hoping that I have something interesting to say. Usually, I don’t. This got me wondering: Shouldn’t I know something by now?

When you speak to a professional who’s been around for a while, it will seem like they have everything covered. If your accountant seems lost while doing your books, the safe bet is that the fault is yours, not theirs. Your math teacher probably knew the curriculum upside down, lawyers know just what language to put in contracts, and surgeons operate from muscle memory.

Entrepreneurs don’t seem to have that kind of confidence. Yes, we can regurgitate some details about employment law or the tax code, but that’s the kind of thing someone else is paid to know. We also have some hard-won knowledge born of silly or painful mistakes: Careful with this kind of employee, that kind of market is hard, this language on a website will confuse customers.

But our main job is predicting the future — guessing which way the world is moving, and how quickly, to decide which risks are worth taking, and when, and how. Then forecasting how customers and competitors will respond, and reassessing it all in the light of new data. That’s what we’re paid to do.

And nobody knows how to do that. I can’t even make good predictions in the narrow domain of my own expertise. Ask me the optimal price to charge customers for a two-mile on-demand delivery in Barbados, and my response will begin with a long sigh. My guess will be based on a lot of data, so it’s probably better than yours, but it’s still a guess.

Unlike the accountants and the doctors, I’m always groping in the dark. I find all the information I can, I listen to other people, I trust my gut, I start small, and I cut my losses when I’m wrong. But I certainly don’t claim to know what I’m doing.