David Cancel wrote an article for Inc where he revealed the ‘simple lesson from Charlie Munger’ that helped Drift hit 8 figure revenue.
This was truly counterintuitive – at least when Charlie Munger started applying it to Berkshire Hathaway investment philosophy. For starters it was the outlook. The ability to have a contrarian view to a situation. David quotes Munger from the book Damn Right: Behind the Scenes with Berkshire Hathaway Billionaire Charlie Munger:
“Invert, always invert: Turn a situation or problem upside down. Look at it backward.”
David Cancel
David then goes on to elaborate how he and his Co-founder Elias Torres followed Mungers advice when they started Drift. He explains their analysis of the market :
“But Drift was built in 2014 — a time when the power was shifting from sellers to buyers. These 7,000 some-odd products were built for a world that no longer exists. They were still focusing on the seller — not the buyer.” He refers to the B2C market and how focus on the buyer is changing the game.
If you want to emulate the success of Drift follow these 3 steps :
- “Find role models of your own.
- Figure out how to invert existing models in your market to solve a problem no one else sees.
- Once you zero in on your end goal think of all the reasons why you will fail to get there and avoid these barriers at all cost.”
While on the topic of converse thinking I am reminded of the seminal book on ‘integrative thinking‘ by Roger L.Martin – The Opposable Mind. – “…like the opposable thumb, the “opposable mind”-Martin’s term for the human brain’s ability “to hold two conflicting ideas in constructive tension”-is an intellectually advantageous evolutionary leap through which decision-makers can synthesize “new and superior ideas.”
He talks about integrative thinking and how relentless diagnosing (finding out why you will fail and avoid those at all cost) and synthesizing by asking probing questions including: “What are the causal relationships at work here?” and “What are the implied trade-offs?”
New ways of looking at the world is necessary (invert, always invert…) to deal with the contradictions and complexities of our world noted Richard Evans in his review of the book in Financial Times.
Link to this succinct and extremely potent article by David Cancel in Inc
How This Simple Lesson From Charlie Munger Helped My Company Hit 8 Figures in Revenue https://www.inc.com/david-cancel/how-this-simple-lesson-from-charlie-munger-helped-my-company-hit-8-figures-in-revenue.html
Link to Roger Martin‘s website : https://rogerlmartin.com/lets-read/the-opposable-mind
