I’m not sure about you, but the word ‘wealth’ is often thrown around in conversation and often leaves many people slightly confused. What is wealth? How is it different from being rich? How can I become wealthy? The advice we generally hear regarding money is to save as much as possible, invest what we can, and climb the corporate ladder in your 9-5, and you’ll likely do well. This advice isn’t wrong. However, I want to share some principles from The Almanack of Naval Ravikant that changed the way I thought about acquiring wealth and riches. This truly can be a wealth-building formula if understood properly and applied effectively: the importance of gaining specific knowledge and the effectiveness of solving a problem for a set of people who have not yet found a solution.
Of course, both can be applied separately and still be effective, but imagine this: you have expertise in a field that is difficult to teach and hard to replace, and you are able to solve a problem for a certain niche and scale it so it reaches as far as you want. Now, that’s true wealth-building potential. This is not just about earning a high salary or making safe investments. It’s about creating something unique that scales – something that gives you the freedom to control your time and your financial future.
So let’s break both of these down individually and discuss how we can combine them to create an effective duo.
Specific Knowledge
“Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now.” — Naval Ravikant
Specific knowledge isn’t something that is taught in the classroom or something that is common among us. It is something that can be unique to you, your upbringing, your knowledge, and your skills. It’s a rare set of skills, insights, and experiences you have built over time through non-conventional ways of learning. The benefit of this is that it cannot be taught very easily, meaning it will be harder to replace you if you pursue this avenue as a business. Think of people who are ultra-successful in their fields and have built significant wealth—Steve Jobs, for example, someone who had an eye for design and product vision, or Elon Musk, who has an incredible talent for physics and engineering.
“Specific knowledge is knowledge you cannot be trained for. If society can train you, it can train someone else and replace you.” — Naval Ravikant
Specific knowledge can be found in many forms, such as technical skills like software development and data science, creative abilities like storytelling and product design, or even expertise in market areas such as real estate, finance, or digital marketing. Have a think about something you have been doing since you were a kid or teenager, something that comes easily to you. Something that you might not even consider a skill, but those around you find challenging. Maybe something that has been ingrained in you through your upbringing or circumstances – this creates the best and most rewarding kind of specific knowledge.
Examples of this might be, “Musical talents, with the ability to pick up any instrument, or playing a lot of games and understanding game theory well.” — Naval Ravikant.
The point is, analyse who you are and what makes you special. There is always something, even if you tell yourself there is not. Even down to the most unique of traits and characteristics, these can present opportunities unimaginable—you just haven’t thought that deeply yet. And this is something you can leverage.
Scalable Problem-Solving
“You will get rich by giving society what it wants but does not yet know how to get at scale.” — Naval Ravikant
Once you have decided on your specific knowledge, the next step is to think about what problem you can solve and who you can solve it for. We want to solve a problem for a certain demographic of people, known as a niche. However, the niche must be big enough so we can package and scale our product/offer to many people. It’s also important to note that we want to package our product in a way that allows us to free up our time so that we are not trading our time for money. This can be done through technology, media, or products online.
Being able to solve a problem for a niche that has no or limited solutions puts you and your specific knowledge in the driver’s seat. You have the leverage now, and you can reflect this in your offer and pricing strategy. Once you have your solution to the problem, package your offer in the most attractive format and begin scaling it to the world. If it works and solves a problem, you are well on your way to building wealth and riches.
Combination
1) Create a digital product or course
If you have specific knowledge in a certain field – for example, the ability to become the fittest version of yourself while juggling an intense corporate career – package this into an online course, digital product, or ebook that you can scale and sell repeatedly with no extra work.
2) Build a personal brand and monetise aspects of your content.
If you have a vast amount of understanding of a niche topic or industry – for example, real estate, finances, or AI – you can build a personal brand around your content and use different social media and video platforms to build an audience. As a result, you will be able to scale at large masses and earn income based on ad revenue, sponsorships, affiliate marketing, and paid groups.
These are just examples of how you can get started, and it can be done in many ways – you just need to find the one that suits you, your specific knowledge, and your niche.
Conclusion
Combining specific knowledge with scalable problem-solving is the fastest way to build real wealth. It allows you to do what you’re best at while reaching as many people as possible, often without having to trade your time directly for money.
Inspired By The Almanack of Naval Ravikant