How the 24 year old picked software distribution out of about 40 ideas.
Lionel Barber's framework, from Gambling Man, pp. 22 to 65.
Stack up the ideas
List around 40 business ideas, each rated individually, until the paper stack ran 32 feet high.
Ask where he can be number one
Reject markets such as PC hardware where he knew he could not win dominance against the big makers.
Find the bottleneck
Look for a market with potential for unlimited growth where no shop or catalogue existed, which was software distribution.
Pitch as the specialist
Tell retailers that focus makes him the most knowledgeable person in the category and ask for an exclusive.
Spend on marketing first
Build a name and brand before profit, even at the cost of most of the start-up capital.
From chapter: PART ONE: BOY GENIUS, pp. 22–65
Part One follows Masa from a Korean shanty town in Tosu to his first fortune. His grandfather came to Japan in 1917, his father moved from pig breeding and loan sharking into pachinko, and Masa grew up a zainichi Korean hiding behind a Japanese alias. After cold-calling the McDonald's Japan founder Den Fujita he went to California in 1973, met the mentor Tadashi Sasaki, and built a pocket speech translator with Professor Forrest Mozer and the partner Hong Lu. Back in Japan in 1980 he filtered about 40 ideas, picked PC software distribution, founded SoftBank in 1981 and survived a cash crisis before a hepatitis B diagnosis in 1982 told him he had one or two years left.
