What blocks your insight?

Sunset in Newport, JC. Photo by Stella

What Is Insight?

Insight is the ability to see beyond the surface and grasp the real needs of users. Entrepreneurs tend to be highly perceptive—they encounter a wealth of information and knowledge every day. But what truly matters is not what they see, but how deeply they look. As Nobel Laureate André Gide once said, “What matters is not what you see, but how you look at it.”

Imagine this scenario: You return to your hometown in the countryside and see fruit-laden trees. Looking down, you notice many ripe fruits have fallen to the ground, left uncollected. You ask a local farmer why such good fruit isn't being sold. He replies, “Because there are no effective sales channels.”

You start thinking, and perhaps three solutions come to mind.

Solution A: Driven by compassion, you post on social media with a buying link, encouraging friends to support local farmers. You guarantee the quality and urge everyone to help out. A few days later, you post an update: "Thanks to everyone's support, we've sold 10,000 pounds of fruit in just one week."

Is this effective? Yes, it's impactful. At minimal cost, you’ve addressed an urgent need and helped a small group of people.

Solution B: Realizing this issue isn't unique to your village, you consider broader systemic challenges. Many rural agricultural products face poor sales. So, you start a community group-buying business in your neighborhood, selling farm produce directly to urban communities. Though the logistics and packaging are tough, you're creating tangible value—and building a viable business.

Solution C: You dig deeper: Why isn’t the fruit being sold? What’s preventing it from reaching buyers? The farmer tells you: that labor costs are too high. There's not enough manpower to collect the fruit, and the middlemen only offer ¥1 per kilo—less than the cost of labor. The more they harvest, the more they lose.

So you consider leveraging the internet’s ability to aggregate demand. If you could generate orders of 10,000 pounds at a time, could it create an economically viable solution? Once demand is sufficiently concentrated, supply can follow.

Pinduoduo’s Market Value and the Power of Universal Perspective

When you approach problems from a broader perspective, what you see isn’t just agricultural products—you see new opportunities.

Take Pinduoduo, for instance. When it first rose to prominence, people criticized it for selling counterfeits and low-quality goods. At best, they acknowledged it tapped into China's lower-tier markets. But if that’s all it was, how did its market cap surge past $100 billion?

Can you observe product use with honesty? Can you analyze what motivates people to buy, and how they use products after purchasing? Real insights often come from seeing what others overlook.

In China, countless entrepreneurs are chasing similar ideas. A thousand people may think of the same concept, a hundred might prepare to act on it, ten will take real steps—and maybe one will succeed. Some ideas fail not because they're bad, but because they're not efficient or scalable. That’s the reality.

Nurturing Insight: The Curiosity of a Child

People often ask: “Who doesn’t want to have insight? But how do we gain it?”

The truth is, that insight is rare. There’s no universal formula. But I can share how I personally approach problems to cultivate insight.

Recently, I wrote in my social feed: “If an entrepreneur could retain these three qualities simultaneously—childlike curiosity, youthful courage, and mature wisdom—how incredible would that be?”We often retain courage and wisdom but lose that childlike curiosity as we go.

The first step toward insight is relentless curiosity. Keep asking why. Curiosity helps you deconstruct confusion. Many seemingly trivial questions hide deeper truths. When you continue to ask, even to the point of discomfort, you often discover surprising insights hidden beneath the ordinary.

There’s a great book called Asking the Right Questions—I highly recommend it.

You can also do small mental exercises. For example: What is the essence of livestream e-commerce? Why did it emerge this year? Is this the final form of the model? If not, what might it evolve into?

Ask these questions and explore the answers. And don’t just think alone—interact with others in the comments or discussions.

Learning from Masters: Challenging Your Perspective

Another way to sharpen your insights is to seek out people more experienced than you. Whenever I enter a new field, I find an expert to talk to. But I don’t flatter them or try to get their approval. The goal isn’t to be agreed with—it’s to spark new collisions of thought.

Too often, when I challenge entrepreneurs, they get defensive. But you can ask: Why do you see it that way? If your only goal is to defend yourself, you lose the chance for true dialogue.

Outstanding individuals don’t crave affirmation—only the insecure do. Consider your own team: when the boss proposes an idea, do people challenge it, or just hit “like” and move on to execution?

Your level of thinking reflects your team’s overall cognitive capacity. That’s why I suggest actively seeking mentors and coaches—people who are stronger than you in specific areas.

What Blocks Insight?

So what prevents us from seeing through appearances and understanding users’ real needs?

Yes, part of it is capability. Maybe your perspective isn’t broad enough, your thinking not deep enough, your vision not big enough. These are all tied to your skills, worldview, and independent thinking.

But the deeper issue is human nature. We unconsciously seek self-affirmation. The more we believe in something, the more likely we are to create self-reinforcing arguments for it.

Remember the story of Bad Blood in Silicon Valley? Elizabeth Holmes founded Theranos, claiming to revolutionize blood testing. In just a decade, it became one of the most valuable unicorns in the Valley. Holmes made it onto Forbes' richest lists and Time's 100 most influential people.

Investors saw her as the next Steve Jobs. But it turned out, the entire company was built on lies. Still, one investor bought in, then another—none wanted to miss “the next Apple.” Big names backed her: former U.S. Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, and legendary VC Donald Lucas.

Even smart people can make foolish decisions when overconfident. That’s human nature. We don’t want to abandon big dreams, even if they’re built on shaky ground.

There’s a saying: We may not be smarter than others, but we must have greater self-control. Whether it’s investing or starting a business, it’s a journey of self-discipline—overcoming your own weaknesses is one of life’s biggest challenges.

So what if others disagree with you? Can you quietly keep thinking, and work through those unanswered questions? Most people I admire are thick-skinned. The more fragile someone is, the more sensitive they become—and the more they care about what others think.

Final Thoughts

Entrepreneurship often begins with the romantic act of “seeing.” So the next time a new idea sparks in your mind, try asking yourself a few more whys. And when you discuss your ideas with others, don’t rush to be understood or agreed with.

Lately, I’ve come to appreciate this line: “When we conclude, we must also think through the conditions under which it would fail.”

If you adopt this mindset, you can evaluate your own ideas more critically. Ask yourself: If this idea turns out to be wrong, why would that be? Only by clearly understanding what could make an idea fail, can you build something that truly works.

Note: I wrote this article that received over 3k views in 2018 in Chinese. I translated in English by ChatGpt in 2025.