Mike Rothenberg: Swim Toward Blue Oceans

It turns out that at least 95% of the world is a red ocean. By that I mean a lot of people know about that particular space. People are operating in it. People are competing with each other. It makes sense to focus on that because that's about, or at least 95% of people and jobs and things are. So what we did is we spent probably 95% of our time in red ocean. So they'll say, okay, in a red ocean, you have to out compete. You've got to get your processes down. You really need to, you need to be fast, you need to be a little bit faster, you need to be a little bit better, a little bit better recruiting. You know, it's really hard to differentiate in a red ocean because everybody understands what's going on. I think it's red ocean because it's a bloodbath. And so it's like everybody knows and you want to get the 2%, got to beat the market. The market's doing this. You got to go 2% higher. And that's actually a fair characterization because that's really the way most of the world is. And so, you know, everybody's taking notes and like trying to prepare for the test and all this stuff. And then like near the end of the class, they said, we want to talk a little bit about blue ocean. So when you're in a blue ocean, it means that it's kind of a new market. It hasn't fully developed and people are not yet sure where it's going to go. But everybody wins because it's a blue ocean and everybody's gathering the opportunities. And now back to red oceans. Rewind. What did you just say? In a blue ocean, everybody can win until it becomes a red ocean. Then the question then becomes, how do I get to a blue ocean? Stop this red ocean nonsense. There may not be very many of them. I should be focused on blue oceans. Let everybody else deal with the red oceans. So the reason why blue oceans are hard is because people haven't discovered them yet. So you have to be an explorer and you have to be on the cutting edge of innovation and things that are interesting. And that's why the future matters, is because the future is where the future red oceans is, where the blue oceans are today. So you have to care about that to find them. And it's really important to be in a blue ocean. Even if what you're doing is joining a company, advising a company, whatever. You need to be parts of blue oceans. And the way to find the blue oceans is to talk to other people trying to find the blue oceans with a history of finding them. And one of the things that we do is we have been experimenting with virtual reality for two years. We have been investing in things like electronic currency, we're investing in drones and space travel. And these are all potentially blue oceans. Now, blue oceans start as blue ponds. So it's difficult to see the growth rate that a blue pond can turn into a blue lake and be a blue ocean. And because if you're in a blue pond, it could actually dry up. It could turn into a blue lake and stay a blue lake. It could turn into a blue lake and go back to a blue pond. It's not as easy as saying, oh, that's blue. It may be blue, but you have to also be seeing the rate at which it's growing. But if you're there and you're in a blue pond and you see it rapidly turning into a blue lake and then it turns into a blue ocean, you may have just found something great for your career. And if you're in a red ocean, I really urge you to just swim, swim, swim to the blue pond. It may seem like it's smaller, it may seem like it's not as great, but it is the proverbial be a big fish there and try to figure out not only where it's going, but help build where it's going. It is the fish in the blue ponds that build the blue lakes.