For those who want to change their current situation: Instead of just studying, why not start or buy a company?

Having launched a search fund, I have come to a clear realization.
If you want to change your current situation, you should start or buy a company instead of just studying (preparing).
Especially for those who are paying a lot of money to study.

Honestly, just because I was an executive didn't mean I had a high salary.
Nor did my shares suddenly skyrocket in value.

However, what I gained was far greater than that.

What did I gain?

For example, how to determine the value of a company.
How to judge whether to invest in a particular manager.
How to accompany management with a sense of ownership.
What issues to focus on and where to feel uneasy.
How to make decisions with limited information.

I didn't know these things from the start.
It's not like I had an abundance of knowledge either.

I researched because it was necessary.
Once I researched, I immediately put it into practice.
When you try it, you realize how shallow your understanding is.
So you research again.
And try again.

For example, when I was involved in due diligence for the first time,
I examined financial statements, visited the company, and built hypotheses based on what I saw and heard.
But it's not that simple.
I researched again and visited again.
It was a cycle of repetition.

But this repetition was significant.

Not learning before doing, but learning because you need to do it.

In this order, learning becomes tangible.
Knowledge doesn't just end as information; it connects to judgment and action.
It gradually changes from 'knowing' to 'being able to use'.

I believe this is a sensation that is hard to get just by learning in your head.

If you want to learn something, instead of studying forever, try starting a company, even if it's small.
Or try buying a company.
That way, learning becomes personal all at once.

Of course, you don't need to bet big right away; small is fine.
You don't need to prepare perfectly either.
In fact, it is precisely because you start while there are things you don't know that you gain the necessary learning.

It's not that studying is bad.
Learning itself has great meaning.

But sometimes, even if you study forever, the scenery doesn't change.
On the other hand, when you move to the side of creating, owning, and bearing responsibility, what you see changes completely.

If you want to change your current situation, I can confidently recommend starting or buying a company.

Things that wouldn't have sunk in through study alone become personal all at once.
And that experience stays with you more than you think.

At least for me, the experience of launching a search fund was exactly that.