When to open:When you need to forecast a new business / evaluate a side hustle / join a new company / want to make long-term decisions by “looking at the present from the AGI perspective”. This wiki integrates the three schools of thought from yitang Truman + Wang Kai + Aschenbrenner.
One-sentence core:Truman: “Forecasting is often several times more important than Yitang’s five-step method.” + Wang Kai: “Look at the present from the AGI perspective.” + 15-character core mantra: “Proactively think about the endgame, fully expand options, professionally subtract.”. The success rate gap between P-type and L-type entrepreneurs is 100x.
0. Core Mantra
15-character core mantra(Truman):Proactively think about the endgame, fully expand options, professionally subtract.
Core math:
- Picking a direction off the top of your head → 10% first-attempt success rate
- Eliminating the 90% that is unreliable after research → 30%+ first-attempt success rate
- Testing 4 times a year → total success rate P = 1 - 0.7⁴ = 76%
9-character underlying mindset:Don’t be conflicted, don’t be naive, don’t be afraid
1. yitang Truman’s Complete Framework
Yitang opportunity forecasting methodology:
1.1 Step 0: P-type vs L-type Entrepreneurs
| P-type (Passion-driven) | L-type (Logical) | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting point | Comes from past success experience / personal vision / a spur-of-the-moment impulse | Treats entrepreneurship as a research problem, continuously collects information |
| Rhythm | Assemble team → start working → solve problems along the way | Research → forecast → eliminate 70-80% of pitfalls → only then enter the field |
| Single-attempt success rate | < 1% | 10-30% |
Success rate gap between P-type and L-type entrepreneurs in the forecasting phase:Possibly on the order of 100x.
1.2 Step 1: Proactively think about the endgame (7-layer spectrum)
1 副业 → 2 个体 → 3 单体 → 4 小规模 → 5 体系增长 → 6 细分头部 → 7 做大上市
零花钱 养活自己 几十-几百万 百万级 千万级 亿级 十亿级+
Rules:
- Choose An interval Not a single point — “secure A, strive for B” (e.g., secure 3, strive for 5)
- Forecast The 5-10 year endgame, do not judge the present
- Cautious and pragmatic (neither overreaching nor overly short-sighted)
Truman’s common qualitative inflection point prompts:
- Stable business vs pursuing top-tier venture financing?
- Single store is enough vs must scale?
- Amateur trial vs full-time commitment?
- Solo operation vs hiring to build a company?
1.3 Step 2: Fully expand options (option pool)
Pitfall:Directly treating “build an overseas 3C brand” / “run a chain bakery” as the entrepreneurship topic.
3 decomposition methods:
| Method | Dimension |
|---|---|
| Horizontal segmentation | Price band / online vs offline / city region / 2B2C / subcategory |
| Industry value chain | Raw materials / manufacturing / channels / media / consumer delivery |
| Yitang five-step method | Demand / solution / business model / growth / moat |
Target:
- General business:At least 10 options
- Training mode / MBA camp:Target 100 options
1.4 Step 3: Professionally subtract (eliminate fatal flaws)
Charlie Munger: “If I knew where I was going to die, I would never go there.”
3 major fatal flaw dimensions:
10 classic misjudgments of business models:
- Non-rigid demand (e.g., community social bookstore)
- Unit economics do not work (e.g., education version of Toutiao)
- Ceiling too low (e.g., Wuhan medical aesthetics SaaS)
- Poor sustainability (a certain viral internet-famous snack)
- ...
5 typical misjudgments of team capability:
- Lack of original intention (quick-money mindset doing serious business)
- Lack of capability (strong product/tech but cannot open sales channels)
- Lack of necessary funding
- ...
Industry opportunity canvas(Common industry fatal flaws):
- Lack of change (stable industry, no disruptive opportunities)
- Failure to decompose the industry chain
- Missed competitive window
- Missed financing window
- Concentration too low
1.5 Step 4: Produce 4-tier deliverables
| Tier | Form |
|---|---|
| 1 | Vague idea |
| 2 | Specific topic with relative confidence |
| 3 | Topic + five-step hypothesis forecast |
| 4 | Five-step forecast + Plan B/C/D alternatives ← Advanced state |
2. Classic Cases (Exclusive Complete Version)
2.1 Milk tea shop (Antique, 2013)
4-step forecast:
- Choose broad direction —— Livelihood (clothing, food, housing, transport; long-term stable)
- Choose category —— Small catering → milk tea (long lifecycle + time-machine theory + store opening cost of 300,000–500,000 RMB is enough)
- Entry method —— “Joint venture” with a well-known franchise brand (100% operational decision-making power)
- Choose battlefield —— Top 30 cities → cut central and western regions → cut East China and South China → lock in Qingdao/Yantai/Dalian → select based on combined GDP + distance Qingdao
Result:100+ stores in 10 years, became a top player in Qingdao.
2.2 Vertical e-commerce → men’s pants (Peter, 2012)
Core mantra:
- Do not enter if the supply chain is not strong enough (resources < 500,000 RMB)
- Eliminate women’s clothing (cannot build a brand) / eliminate children’s clothing (insufficient supply chain) → men’s clothing → men’s pants → Men’s formal pants(Single-point breakthrough)
- With limited startup capital, focus on one point for higher odds of winning
Byproduct — counter-tactic when unable to negotiate supply chain:Arranged for the boss to have tea with a Chaoshan peer who used to be far inferior to him but took off after switching to e-commerce,did not discuss cooperation, only let him open the e-commerce backend to look at revenue data. A few days later the boss proactively came to seek cooperation.
2.3 Yitang from -1 to 0 (Truman, 2018)
76% probability math:
- 30% single-attempt success rate (after serious research)
- Test 4 times a year → failure rate = 0.7⁴ = 0.2401 → 76% success rate
Option pool evolution:
| Version | Content | Elimination reason |
|---|---|---|
| V1.0 | 6 alternatives | — |
| V2.0 → 4 options | Eliminate personalized research reports / service yellow pages | No paying users / 2B trust threshold too high |
| V3.0 → add entry points | Training / partner / community / modular consulting | — |
| V4.0 → 3 options | Eliminate finding partners | Cannot form a product core |
Result:C training (Plan C) was validated → Yitang → 50 million RMB revenue in 5 years.
3. Advanced Business Forecasting (yitang Truman + Zhou Zijing Exclusive)
Yitang / Advanced Business Forecasting (Industry Canvas + Concentration + Cases):
3.1 5-dimension industry forecasting canvas (Truman)
| Dimension | Key question |
|---|---|
| 1. Decompose the industry chain | Who are the upstream, midstream, and downstream? |
| 2. Discern industry changes | What is changing in supply/demand/technology/policy/channels? |
| 3. Forecast the next steady state | What will the industry look like in 5-10 years? |
| 4. Judge the industry cycle | Early stage / rapid growth / mature / declining? |
| 5. Judge ceiling & concentration | What is the upper limit of industry scale? CRn forecast? |
3.2 Concentration CRn (lectured by Zhou Zijing)
3 endgame forms:
| Form | CR5 threshold | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Highly concentrated | CR5 ≥ 90% | WeChat, Meituan, Didi, online education |
| Relatively concentrated | CR5 ≈ 50% | High-end baijiu, large home appliances, mobile phones |
| Relatively fragmented | CR5 < 30% | Beauty, catering, women’s clothing, women’s shoes |
3.3 4 types of market evolution
| Evolution | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Battle over | Leaders emerge, concentration rises | Instant messaging / search |
| Let a hundred flowers bloom | Long-term fragmentation, no leader | Catering / beauty |
| Winner takes all | Extremely high concentration in the short term | Platforms / SaaS |
| Early stage | Concentration undecided | New tracks / innovative categories |
4. Wang Kai “Look at the Present from the AGI Perspective” (Exclusive)
Wang Kai AI-era decision-making system §2 + Wang Kai RSI AI investment strategy and “good asset, good price, good volatility” framework:
4.1 Core thinking framework (pinned post, 2025-04)
“I fully lived through the mobile internet cycle; standing at the end of the mobile internet era, if I could look back at my past choices, how would I choose?”
Present-day conversion:Assume AGI arrives on 2035-01-01, what should we do today?
graph TD
A[站在 2035-01-01 AGI 视角] --> B[1. 不做 AI 主要趋势]
A --> C[2. 不做 AI 直线相关]
A --> D[3. 推测哪些常识/规则被改写]
A --> E[4. 做改写过程中的配套生意]
A --> F[5. 持有 AI 龙头股]
4.2 Difference from “endgame thinking”
- Endgame thinking is narrower, more focused on competitive strategy
- The AGI perspective incorporates a +30-year long-term variable, not limited to competition
- Grasp longer-term variables, do not be confused by short-term trends
4.3 3 judgments Wang Kai got wrong
| Judgment | Reason for error | Lesson |
|---|---|---|
| Firmly believed in AI in December 2022, but did not buy NVDA | Did not convert cognition into investment returns | “Cognition that is not monetized is equivalent to no cognition” |
| ChatGPT would immediately disrupt search after its release | Underestimated lag effects | “Change is cumulative, not accomplished overnight” |
| Smartphones would definitely replace feature phones immediately | Same as above | Nokia still has a market cap of 40 billion USD today |
5. Aschenbrenner Situational Awareness (Exclusive Academic Foundation)
Wang Kai Collection / Intensive Reading of Cutting-Edge AI Papers and Reports 2024–2026 §I:
5.1 Core thesis
AGI by 2027 is strikingly plausible
5.2 Core assertions of the 5 major chapters
| Chapter | Core |
|---|---|
| I. Counting the OOMs | GPT-2→GPT-4 = preschool child → smart high school student in 4 years / 2024→2027 another 4–5 OOMs |
| II. Intelligence Explosion | Hundreds of millions of AGI-automated AI researchers,compressing 10 years of algorithmic progress into 1 year |
| IIIa. Trillion-Dollar Cluster | $10B → $100B → $1T compute clusters |
| IIIb. Lock Down the Labs | US AI lab safety is a joke |
| IIIc. Superalignment | Controlling AI far smarter than us is an unsolved technical problem |
| IV. The Project | There will be some kind of government AGI project in 2027/2028 |
See details in Scaling Law / AGI Timeline / Software 3.0 (Cross-Author Thematic Synthesis) §3.
6. Detailed Explanation of the 9-Character Underlying Mindset
Corresponds to timing, location, and human alignment:
| Dimension | Objective aspect | Mindset |
|---|---|---|
| Timing(Industry opportunity) | Does not depend on you | Don’t be conflicted(Seek truth from facts, ride the trend) |
| Location(Business model) | Objective laws | Don’t be naive(Validate quickly) |
| Human alignment(Original intention / team / resources) | Can be controlled | Don’t be afraid(Actively change, bravely strive) |
Wang Xing:Do not use tactical diligence to cover up strategic laziness.
7. Business Types and Base Success Rates (Exclusive)
Yitang opportunity forecasting methodology §III:
| Business type | Industry average success rate |
|---|---|
| Simple side hustles where everyone makes money | < 50% |
| Small restaurants / fruit shops | < 30% |
| Independent scalable business | < 15% |
| Innovative plays pursuing top-tier status | < 3%, even 1‰ |
Core goal of forecasting:Raise the base probability by 1x / 5x / 10x / dozens of times.
8. How to Choose — Forecasting Paths by Identity
| Who you are | Primary method | Starting point |
|---|---|---|
| Launching a new business | yitang 4-step forecast | Think endgame + expand options + subtract + Plan B/C/D |
| Industry-level research | 5-dimension industry canvas + CRn | Decompose industry chain + 5 types of changes + endgame + cycle + ceiling |
| Long-term investment / career | Wang Kai AGI perspective | Assume AGI in 2035 → do not do the main AI trend, do supporting plays → hold leading stocks |
| Academia / understanding timelines | Aschenbrenner 165 pages | OOMs / Intelligence Explosion / Trillion-dollar cluster |
| Avoid off-the-top-of-head decisions | Truman P-type → L-type | Research → forecast → eliminate 70-80% of pitfalls → then enter the field |
Universal discipline:
- Forecasting is often several times more important than the five-step method(Truman)
- 15-character core mantra:Proactively think about the endgame, fully expand options, professionally subtract
- 76% probability math:Test 4 times a year
- 9-character mindset:Don’t be conflicted, don’t be naive, don’t be afraid
- Cognition that is not monetized is equivalent to no cognition(Wang Kai)
- Entrepreneurship is about winning + win first, then seek battle(The Art of War by Sun Tzu)
9. Reference List
- Yitang opportunity forecasting methodology —— Cognitive Framework chapter / 15-character core mantra / 7-layer spectrum / 76% probability / 9-character mindset / 4-tier deliverables / 3 classic cases
- Yitang / Advanced Business Forecasting (Industry Canvas + Concentration + Cases) —— 5-dimension industry canvas / CRn concentration / 60-75-85 tiers / 4 types of market evolution
- Yitang / Wang Huiwen Tsinghua Product Course 66-page complete notes —— Classic supplements from Wang Huiwen
- Wang Kai RSI AI investment strategy and “good asset, good price, good volatility” framework —— Look at the present from the AGI perspective / 5 core mantras
- Wang Kai AI-era decision-making system —— AGI perspective / do not chase the mainstream, do supporting plays
- Wang Kai Collection / Intensive Reading of Cutting-Edge AI Papers and Reports 2024–2026 —— Aschenbrenner Situational Awareness 165 pages
Related skills:
yitang-predict-business-opportunity—— L-type forecastingyitang-predict-industry-opportunity—— Industry forecastingyitang-predict-endgame-concentration—— Endgame concentrationyitang-predict-unit-dynamics—— Unit dynamics forecasting
Sources and related materials
- Yitang opportunity forecasting methodology
- Yitang / Advanced Business Forecasting (Industry Canvas + Concentration + Cases)
- Yitang / Wang Huiwen's Tsinghua Product Course: Complete 66-Page Notes
- Wang Kai RSI AI Investment Strategy and the "Good Asset, Good Price, Good Volatility" Framework
- Wang Kai Decision-Making Systems in the AI Era
- Wang Kai Collection / 2024–2026 Close Reading of Cutting-Edge AI Papers and Reports
- Entrepreneurship Methodology (From 0 to 1) (Cross-Author Thematic Synthesis)
- Scaling Law / AGI Timeline / Software 3.0 (Cross-Author Thematic Synthesis)
- AI Industry Judgments and Corporate Competition (Cross-Author Thematic Synthesis)
- ROI / Decision Evaluation Systems (Cross-Author Thematic Synthesis)