My Biggest Business Mistake (so far)

My biggest business mistake, the one that cost me the most, is probably focusing on the wrong thing.

What is the "wrong" thing? It's many things, actually. Let's go by process of elimination:

1. I focused on looking for the "right" business idea. It never came.
2. I focused on competitors, niches, and "what other people do". It doesn't matter as much as you think, especially when you're just starting out.
3. I focused on trying to find the perfect offer. There is no "perfect offer". YOUR offer is best found through trial and error.
4. I focused on looking for problems to solve. I found many problems, but I found it hard to solve them properly.
5. I focused on founder-market fit. I thought that maybe if I find the right niche for my background, it will work out. It somewhat did, but this also missed the main point.
6. I focused on pure MRR — how much money I make THIS MONTH. And I ended up over-optimizing for the wrong thing, five times in a row.

Things started coming together when I grasped one basic concept:

Focus on the VALUE you want to bring. QUALITY is the often-missed ingredient. It wasn't even about knowing the specific value — just grasping that I wanted to bring VALUE, QUALITY, GOODNESS at all. Once that clicked, things started moving.