> This requires non-trivial time and resources and is risky.
Absolutely true. You need to take a risk to take advantage of an opportunity.
> Without the resources you can only try it a few times in a lifetime.
If you have time and determination, you really do have all the resources that are necessary (unless you're wanting a get-rich-quick type of thing, of course). There's nothing that limits you to a few times in a lifetime.
Sure, with time and determination, you can build a ladder up a mountain. But one path is as good as another if that's the case. All the 'opportunities' you're ignoring aren't opportunities, they're noise
A real opportunity compels you to take advantage of it, you really are losing something if you don't follow it up.
What's limiting you to a few tries to a lifetime is time. It takes 5-10 years to properly validate a business model, you can only do that so many times. And you might not be in the same place after an attempt that you were before, meaning it might take even more time.
I think that we may be defining "opportunity" differently. It sounds like you're defining it more like a "windfall". To me, an opportunity is when you see a path to enhancing your success. It is not automatically success, and does not imply that no effort is required on your part.
An opportunity is when you find a way of advancing your goals that has a reasonably good chance of success.
> It takes 5-10 years to properly validate a business model,
Except that it doesn't. And you should never go into business with a business model that is so fixed that the only thing you can do is to validate it or not. Your business model is something that you are continually adjusting (sometimes radically) as you learn more about what you're doing or as your situation changes.
> To me, an opportunity is when you see a path to enhancing your success. It is not automatically success, and does not imply that no effort is required on your part.
It's not lack of effort that defines opportunity but the reduction of risk. If someone offers me an opportunity, that means I can work hard and have more of a guarantee of success than if I went and did something else.
Opportunity means it's not just your intuition, effort, and resourcefulness that mitigates risk. Some other factor is helping. Some other company or person is offering you crucial advice and resources. Like Dr. Dre mentoring Eminem. That's an opportunity. You have to get lucky to find one, and then you have to be ready to jump on it.
Getting to the top of a mountain always takes effort, it's just a question of how much it takes to get to the top and whether the direction you pick is the right one.
Absolutely true. You need to take a risk to take advantage of an opportunity.
> Without the resources you can only try it a few times in a lifetime.
If you have time and determination, you really do have all the resources that are necessary (unless you're wanting a get-rich-quick type of thing, of course). There's nothing that limits you to a few times in a lifetime.