A few weeks ago, I was reading a blog post about Costco and its founder, Sol Price. I’m familiar with the discount warehouse retail model because I’ve read biographies about the Home Depot founders, Bernie Marcus, Arthur Blank, and Ken Langone. The post I was reading thoroughly explained not just what Costco’s business model is but also why it’s been so successful. A key thing that stood out to me was how its membership model acted as a filter. It weeded out unprofitable customers and attracted highly profitable, loyal, repeat customers. That really got my wheels turning about my old company, given that it was retail oriented and we never figured out how to consistently attract the type of customer we wanted.

My takeaway is that I should have studied more businesses and industries when I was running my company. Because I didn’t, I tended to follow what others in my industry did—their business models and go-to-market strategies. What I didn’t realize was that there are tons of other models and strategies that people smarter than me had figured out. I could have borrowed from those to create something “innovative” in my industry, which would have given us a competitive advantage and likely increased profitability too.

I was “too busy” to focus on anything but my own business. But what I didn’t realize was that studying other founders and businesses would have made me more aware of the possibilities in business. That increased awareness would have helped me create better solutions, faster, to my business problems. All of which would have benefited my business tremendously.

I now believe that to achieve outsize success in the game of business, you must be a student of the game. ’m not a lifelong student of the game of business, but I’m making up for lost time now.