Every hit comes with a lot of misses.

The problem is you and I only see people discussing the hits—and we don’t see them discussing the misses so often. Everybody is missing every day.

Sometimes, we’re just too early; we build BlackBerry apps instead of iPhone apps, we discovered YouTube before the entertainment industry recognizes its value, or we hold on to equity that fades in value (only to rebound again!). 

If you’re early, you have the option to bet on the market; to do the hard work of establishing it, drawing attention to it, and becoming known as a key player in it.

Each of those situations I linked to turns out in an outcome that is unrelated to the original industry. One built a popular publication, another wrote several bestselling books, and the third went on to have a great career at Google and Amazon.

So if you’re too early, you can also just move on to the next thing; maybe it suits you better, and will turn into something where you don’t have to wait as long.