Knowledge Marketplace
@zachpogrob

@zachpogrob

Obsession beats discipline - go all-in on your craft until you either die or get reborn.

Back to Takes

If there is a tutorial for what you are doing, do something else.

Spiciness
contrarian_view

The Reasoning

Real innovation exists beyond documented paths. If you can learn it from a YouTube tutorial, so can everyone else. Competitive advantage comes from doing what cannot be taught.

What Needs to Be True

  • Tutorial-able skills become commoditized
  • Novel paths provide sustainable competitive advantage
  • The frontier is always beyond what tutorials can teach

Counterargument

Learning fundamentals - some tutorials teach necessary basics. Even novel work builds on tutorial-able foundations.

What Would Change This View

Seeing someone build massive competitive advantage using purely tutorial-learned skills.

Implications for Builders

Check if your startup idea can be built following a YouTube series

If yes, reconsider the differentiation

Seek the novel combination that has no tutorial

Example Application

Building a standard CRUD app = tutorial exists = commodity. Building novel UI paradigm = no tutorial = potential moat.