There is a children’s arcade game that, in its simple, frustrating design, perfectly illustrates the nature of competing against a truly skilled business owner. You stand there with your mallet, waiting for a mole to pop up so you can strike it down. You are focused, ready, and determined. But the moment you hit one, another immediately pops up in a different spot. You spin around, strike that one, and two more appear elsewhere. Soon, you are swinging wildly, your initial strategy abandoned in a flurry of reaction, until finally you are overwhelmed and the game wins. This is exactly what it feels like to try and stop a business owner who has mastered their craft. They do not build a single, static empire that can be besieged. They create a system of constant, adaptive motion that makes them nearly impossible to pin down.
The fundamental difference lies in how a skilled owner views their business. An amateur builds a house. They construct a single, prominent structure, put all their energy into fortifying its walls, and then stand guard at the front door. If a competitor comes along and manages to breach that door, or if the market shifts and undermines the foundation, the amateur is left with rubble. Their entire world is contained in that one spot, and their identity is tied to defending it. All a competitor has to do is focus their energy on that single point of attack, and eventually, they will find a way through. The game becomes a simple test of force against force.
A truly skilled operator, however, does not build a house. They plant a garden. Or rather, they plant many gardens, in many different plots, with many different kinds of seeds. Their business is not a single entity but a constellation of interconnected ventures, revenue streams, and relationships. Some of these are the main crop, visible and flourishing. Others are small seedlings just breaking the surface. Still others are dormant, waiting for the right conditions to sprout. When a competitor comes along with their mallet, looking for the one head to strike, they are immediately confused. They see activity everywhere. There is no single target.
This dispersion of energy is not a sign of chaos, but of profound strategic intelligence. The skilled owner understands that markets are living things, constantly shifting and evolving. To attach oneself to a single product, a single channel, or a single method is to invite obsolescence. They build their enterprise on principles and networks rather than on any one specific thing. They cultivate talent that can be deployed in multiple directions. They develop systems that can be adapted to sell anything, not just what they are selling today. Their true product is not a widget or a service, but their own capacity to generate value in any environment.
So when you try to stop them, you find yourself in that maddening arcade game. You might successfully disrupt their primary product line, perhaps by copying it or undercutting their price. You watch the head go down with a satisfying thump, expecting them to crumble. But instead of surrender, you notice a flurry of activity from a different corner. They have pivoted their marketing team to a new offer you hadn’t even noticed. You scramble to address that, only to find they have strengthened a partnership deal, creating a new distribution channel that bypasses your attack entirely. You try to hire away their key person, and you discover that their organizational knowledge is so distributed that the loss is barely a hiccup. The moment you commit your resources to one battle, they have already shifted the war to a different front.This is the hallmark of a business built on true skill rather than mere luck or initial capital. It is resilient not because it is the hardest target, but because it is the most fluid target. You cannot defeat them in a single decisive battle because they refuse to offer one. They understand that in the modern landscape, survival and dominance belong not to the strongest, but to the most adaptable. Their strength lies in their ability to change shape faster than you can change your strategy.
To compete with such an owner is to realize that you are not fighting a person, but a principle in motion. You are trying to stop water with a sieve, or to catch smoke in your hands. Every problem you solve for them is simply information that helps them grow in a new direction. Every blow you land creates an opening for two new opportunities to emerge. The game never ends because the game is the point. They are not trying to build something that can be finished. They are building something that can continue. And when you finally step back, exhausted and outmaneuvered, you understand that you weren’t playing against a business owner at all. You were playing against the very nature of growth itself. And growth, as it turns out, always wins.