My First Million
The best business ideas come from noticing what's working and doing it better, faster, or for a different audience.
Go Slow Now to Go Fast Later
Deliberately limiting initial growth to deeply learn fundamentals, enabling exponentially faster growth later when you apply accumulated knowledge.
Decision Rule
When facing growth opportunities, ask 'Do I understand this business deeply enough to scale without breaking it?' If not, slow down to learn more.
How It Works
Deep learning in early stages creates systems, processes, and intuition that enable rapid scaling without quality degradation or operational failures.
Failure Modes
Going too slow and missing market timing
Never transitioning from learning to scaling phase
Competitors gaining insurmountable advantages during slow period
Example Decision
“Running one retail store for 5 years to perfect operations before opening 100 stores per year, rather than rushing to scale with imperfect systems.”
Related Knowledge
Most products in the world are mediocre and this mediocrity offends truly great entrepreneurs
Product quality obsession isn't just about customer satisfaction but about personal values and standards.
Anti-Business Billionaire Framework
A framework identifying five core traits of entrepreneurs who build massive companies by being contrarian to typical business advice: high disagreeableness, extreme self-confidence, product obsession, total control retention, and refusal to sell at any price.
Edisonian Principle of Design
A product development approach focused on rapid experimentation, immediate feedback, and constant iteration rather than master planning.
Maintain freedom to work on what you love while building a successful business
Ability to work exclusively on projects you're passionate about, declining lucrative distractions, and having money follow from doing what you love rather than chasing money directly.
Family Heirloom Business Model
Viewing your business as a family heirloom to be passed down through generations rather than an asset to be optimized for sale.
Fuck you. This is a family heirloom.
Dyson's response to acquisition offers, treating his company as something to pass to future generations rather than sell for profit.