The Big Wins Will Pay For The Misses
I made decisions that will cost the company $440,113.
If our assumptions play out then we are expecting a 5x return. But I feel like we can do 10x. For this to happen, the ingredients required are:
Belief - if you don’t think you can, you won’t.
Talent - do you have the team to back your belief?
Framework - do you have a plan that maps out daily actions?
Leadership - are the incentives on the top aligned with those below?
I have all these factors lining up with my team. This is why I have a spring in my step – a contagious enthusiasm that makes me tap dance to work.
It’s a wonderful feeling.
The upside of being in this state of mind is that I am using my brain to do what it’s supposed to do – solve problems and create win-win scenarios.
The downside?
I am too emotionally invested.
When problems arise, which are inevitable, my mind cannot stop problem solving. I find myself fixated on solutions even when my ten day old wakes me up in the middle of the night. Sometimes I have to count backwards from hundred, with each breath, just to get my mind off the issue so I can sleep.
Jeff Bezos talked about how much fun he had tap dancing to work when he was at Amazon. His job was to orchestrate the process from ideation to execution by marshaling his troops to go beyond just the data and push certain projects forward. Here is what he said about the process of trying ideas:
“Someone has an idea. Then someone else comes up with objections on why the idea would not work. And then we solve those objections. It’s a very fun process.”
Let’s take Amazon Prime as an example:
“Once a junior software engineer came up with this idea that we can offer people an all you can eat buffet as free shipping. And then the finance team modeled that idea. The results were horrifying. Customers love free shipping but shipping is expensive.
We used heart, intuition, risk taking and instinct - all the good decisions have to be made that way. You do it with a group. You do it with great humility.
Prime was very expensive at the beginning. It cost us a lot of money. Because what happens when you offer a free all you can eat buffet? Who shows up to the buffet first? The heavy eaters. It’s scary! But we could see the trend lines. We could see that all types of customers were coming and they appreciated that service.
We’ve made big doozies like the fire phone and many other things that just didn’t work out. But the big winners pay for thousands of failed experiments.”
Useful Idea - Don’t be afraid to blend theory and data with instinct and experience. If you take a hundred shots, you will hit at least a few bullseyes. But if you wait around, searching for the perfect shot, you’ll never fire.
I’ve taken my shots with the belief, support and firepower of my team. I am confident that the big wins will pay for every miss.
See you next Sunday.
👋 I’m Harsh. I collect useful ideas to win in business and life.
Here’s where I spend most of my time:
iDeals Virtual Data Rooms – building a $1B business by helping dealmakers close deals faster
M&A Community – uncovering personal stories and strategies of M&A, private equity, and investment banking leaders
Happy Ratio – growing a food company the hard way: profit-first, purpose-led
Marcellus Investment Managers – evangelizing long-term investing to build financial independence
Harsh Batra
(LinkedIn)