The last mile is the least crowded

Many things are never attempted simply because they’re hard. It’s called “the road less traveled” for a reason.

A friend and I have walked one such road these last five years. We started a small side business buying and selling Magic: The Gathering trading cards. It was a natural fit as we both love and play the game.

It helped that I had the technical chops to get our online store going and he had the strong financial background allowing him to handle the books etc.

A couple months ago we made a strategic decision to completely reengineer a back end automation process. It required better, more sophisticated and advanced logic and additional integrations to other systems.

I remember thinking “I have no idea how to do this” and was worried it might not even be possible at all. When my partner and I discussed the challenges he said something that I’ll never forget:

“If it was easy we’d have more competitors.”

He was of course 100% right. So we started the process as best we could and figured it out bit by bit. Recently we got it all working.

It’s another nice achievement for what him and I endearingly refer to as “our little venture”. But the experience highlights once again that the last mile is always the least crowded.