You don’t need an invention to start an empire

Join our growing community of ‘Boat Burners’ on my Substack, where I’ll be diving deeper into themes/tactics from my new book & sharing incredible stories about how readers are burning their own boats.

People often ask me how they can possibly start a business when they don’t have an idea for a new, revolutionary product.

In response, I explain that you don’t need a unique product to start a business. Just a special, actionable insight all your own.

Or what I call a “proprietary insight.”

Think about some of the greatest companies built over the last 30 years, like Airbnb or Uber, and ask yourself: what was the invention? 

You won’t find any. What you will find is a proprietary insight.

Take Brian Chesky, one of the founders of Airbnb, for example. His insight (when he was sleeping on a futon in his friend’s house) was that maybe other people would want to rent out a room in a home, rather than a hotel room.

Or rent an entire apartment.

That little insight ended up creating a $100 billion company.

I believe we all have proprietary insights that pass through our hands each day by virtue of the jobs we do, the neighborhood we live in, or the family we’re born into. 

These are within our grasp. But we set the bar too high, searching for revolution instead of evolution. 

The reality is that most businesses were born upon an insight.

And when you look at the founder’s journey, you’ll be able to identify the intersection between their lived experience and that proprietary insight. 

Sure, lots of other people would probably have been able to identify that same thing.

We're all operating on the same set of data, and if you're thinking it, odds are someone somewhere else is thinking it too.

The question is: Which one of you will act on it?

Proprietary insights, not inventions, are the keys to game-changing businesses.

I start by looking for unchallenged groupthink. What’s the prevailing conventional wisdom in a given industry, and how can you flip it on its head?

We can’t become tentative when our instincts don’t match what the world is telling us to do.

The most groundbreaking insights often come to us before they come to others. And if you don’t trust yourself, you will miss the most extraordinary moments to surprise yourself with what’s possible.