Before you chase the next shiny thing, run it through these five questions. This isn't a proprietary formula — it's common sense that most people skip because they're too excited to think straight.
Every opportunity — freelance gig, product idea, partnership, job offer — should survive all five before you commit a single hour.
Not the best case. Not "if everything goes perfectly." What's the most likely revenue in 6-12 months based on what you can verify today? If you can't put a number on it, you don't understand it well enough to pursue it.
A $50K opportunity that pays in 18 months is worth less than a $5K opportunity that pays next week — especially if you need cash flow now. Time-to-cash matters more than total size when you're building.
Every yes is a no to something else. If this new thing takes 20 hours a week, those hours come from somewhere. Name what you're sacrificing. If you can't, you're lying to yourself about your capacity.
Do you have the skills, tools, and connections to pull this off? Not "could you learn them" — do you have them right now? Honest self-assessment here saves months of wasted effort.
Can you walk away clean, or does failure create ongoing costs (debt, reputation damage, contractual obligations)? The best opportunities have cheap failure modes.
| Mistake | Why It Happens | What to Do Instead |
|---|---|---|
| Scoring on potential, not evidence | Optimism bias — you want it to work | Only count what you can prove today |
| Ignoring opportunity cost | New things feel more exciting than current things | Write down what you'd stop doing |
| Asking friends for opinions | Feels like due diligence | Ask someone who's done it and failed |
| Skipping the "can I actually do this" check | Ego | List specific skills needed, rate yourself honestly |
Want our proprietary scoring system with exact formulas, weighted variables, and worked examples from real deals? That's in the full Opportunity Score Framework.
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