Poker is a game of information asymmetry, meaning you and your opponent both know something the other doesn’t. Your cards. Similar to poker, Starcraft is a game of information asymmetry. However, in Starcraft, you can scout what your opponent is doing, but it comes at a cost and isn’t as valuable as some may think.
Too Late
There’s a concept in high-level Starcraft that once you find something out, it’s already too late. Meaning that once you scout what your opponent is doing, it’s too late to change your strategy.
Say your opponent was economically greedy and went with the strategy of building a nexus first (an economic instead of a military structure). You scout this. Even if you immediately start building military structures and units, it’s too late. By the time your military treks across the map to your opponent, your opponent will already have a defense. So, by the time you see your opponent being greedy, you can’t capitalize on their greed.
Then why scout? Scouting looks for where your existing strategy lines up to punish your opponent. In the example above, if your existing plan were already meant to give early pressure, you’d double down on that early pressure. An alternative response would be to catch up by investing more in your economy.
So Hot Right Now
This is similar in life— once there’s an obvious trend, it’s generally too late to jump on. You can, however, modify what you’re doing to work with it.
Think of your opponent as market trends. If agricultural hardware companies are trending, you need to have experience in hardware and agriculture to capitalize on the trend.
If computational biology drug manufacturing is trending, understanding comp biology and drug manufacturing are table stakes. For those looking to get into AI Chip manufacturing— it’s too late to learn how to build a fab, but it’s time to capitalize if you’re already deep in the space.
The companies I’ve seen flail the most are chasing trends like dogs chasing their tails. Jumping into direct-to-consumer applications, crypto, or AI without a use case. The question is what makes the most sense given your business model. Focus on what’s most suitable for your strategy, given the trends.
Infrastructure
Unless you already have the infrastructure, it’s too late. There are builds in Starcraft that are more flexible and can respond faster to opponents. However, they come at a cost. They’re reactive and defensive. Top players have high conviction and make moves others fear.
There are groups with infrastructure optimized around responding quickly to trends. This is one way to operate, but you’ll never be the best by chasing trends. The best predict or create the trends.
Real Estate Trends
Similar to both poker and Starcraft, the real estate industry is filled with information asymmetry and the necessity for timely and informed decisions. It’s why we free client data.
We built Ender to be the operating system of real estate. Having the data in one place where it can easily be pushed and pulled to create automated actions (if this then that), revolutionizes the industry. The advent of small and large language models makes this even more necessary.
Real estate moves slowly. At Ender, we understand that staying ahead of market trends and anticipating industry shifts is crucial. System flexibility is key.
Just as top players in Starcraft must have high conviction and make bold moves, Ender enables its users to confidently navigate the complexities of real estate management, ensuring users can fast follow trends and for the bold, shape them.