Going from 0 to 1 is not easy, especially when it comes to entrepreneurship — it’s extremely difficult. However, success doesn’t necessarily require creating something from nothing. There’s another path, which I call ‘going from 0.5 to 1,’ where you validate first and then begin.

‘0.5’ refers to things that already exist but are being overlooked. This could be an unresolved specific problem or an undervalued real estate property. Whether tangible or intangible, these are existing things (needs). Because human civilization is driven by continuous progress, there is a constant supply of such ‘0.5s.’ Our task is to find them effectively.

Across different business models, the key to success lies in ‘validation.’

1. Steve Chou, in his ‘Profitable Online Store’ experience, mentions testing by selling product samples or prototypes on existing marketplaces or forums to see if there is real demand and to find the true target audience.
2. Codie Sanchez, in ‘Main Street Millionaire,’ points out that taking over an already non-losing brick-and-mortar store is often easier than building a customer base and finding a location from scratch. However, based on my experience, this model isn’t very applicable in densely populated or highly competitive areas, but in the US and Australia, there is still growth space and opportunity for community-based stores.
3. Warren Buffett practices the principle of ‘Great Business with a Fair Price.’ His strength isn’t in creating great companies, but in finding good companies that have been overlooked. This ‘overlooked’ aspect could be something that the public hasn’t yet discovered or something that its shares are widely traded at premium but hasn’t been correctly assessed for its long-term value.

These three successful individuals may not possess the creative genius of Nikola Tesla, but they all have excellent selection systems and filtering mechanisms and can focus on their systems over the long term.

The process of going from 0 to 1 can be divided into two stages: the first stage is going from product development to testing, and the second stage is going from testing to delivering a complete service.

I have worked in the IC product certification field for over 15 years, and ‘bring-up’ and ‘pre-qualification’ are key milestones in the process of introducing new products. My firsthand experience tells me that the process of going from 0 to 0.5 is hard to replicate on a large scale and sometimes has an element of serendipity. But going from 0.5 to 1 can be continuously improved and replicated through a systematic process. And this ongoing iterative improvement is the key to creating a long-term competitive advantage.