Mirage Opportunity Veto
Avoid obvious markets where repeated capable attempts still fail
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 97%
A mirage opportunity looks large and obvious, attracts repeated attempts, yet produces little durable traction. Instead of reading the empty space as an invitation, treat the failure pattern as evidence that a hidden assumption may be wrong. Investigate prior products, customer acquisition, retention, willingness to pay, substitutes, regulation, and incumbent behaviour. If capable teams repeatedly fail and you cannot explain why your approach escapes the same mechanism, veto the idea. Bartlett and Koerner discuss group apps, password replacements, campus-event apps, and tools sold to novice podcasters as examples of this pattern, not as universal bans. The veto can be lifted when a material condition has changed and a test demonstrates that the specific historical constraint no longer applies.
Origin
Extracted from The Diary of a CEO
Core principles
- 01Repeated failure can reveal a hidden structural constraint
- 02An obvious need does not guarantee viable demand
- 03Broken customer retention can invalidate a market
- 04Unexplained incumbent behaviour deserves humility
- 05Not understanding the failure mechanism increases risk
How to run it
- 1
Name the obvious thesis
Write the customer problem and the assumption that makes the opportunity look inevitable.
Pro tip Include the current alternative customers already use.
- 2
Build the attempt history
Find prior companies and compare their traction, retention, monetisation, and fate.
Pro tip Study failed and surviving attempts, not only famous examples.
Watch out Absence of visible success is not proof that no private success exists.
- 3
Find the recurring break
Identify whether the pattern fails at acquisition, behaviour change, retention, economics, regulation, or another constraint.
Pro tip Look for customers who quit the category itself.
Watch out Do not settle for 'execution was bad' without evidence.
- 4
Demand a changed condition
Specify what is materially different now and how it removes the historical constraint.
Pro tip Prefer a measurable change in cost, distribution, regulation, or behaviour.
Watch out A new interface alone may not change customer behaviour.
- 5
Veto or test
Reject the idea when the failure mechanism remains unexplained; otherwise run a test targeted directly at that mechanism.
Watch out Do not fund the full product before the key constraint is tested.
In the wild
Koerner describes a friend whose product helped podcasters. The market looked large, but most prospective customers stopped podcasting quickly, while only a small portion of survivors could afford costly services.
→ The customer base's own attrition made the market structurally difficult.
Bartlett notes that students repeatedly build apps showing campus events, yet social decisions often depend on friends and desired groups rather than a notice board. The audience also turns over heavily each year.
→ The intuitive information problem may not match how students actually choose activities.
Common mistakes
Equating pain with a market
A widespread frustration can persist because customers will not change behaviour or pay for the proposed fix.
Assuming every prior team executed badly
Repeated failure across capable attempts should raise the burden of proof.
Ignoring a genuine regime change
A mirage can become real if a material constraint has demonstrably changed.
Is it for you?
Best for
Idea screening in markets crowded with failed attempts and persistent claims that the next version will finally work.
Not ideal for
Markets where a verified technology, regulatory, cost, or distribution shift has genuinely changed the constraints.
From the transcript
“Something fundamental about your assumptions is off.”
“I stay away from businesses where I don't know why it's not working, but clearly it's not working.”
From the episode
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