One of the most unexpected articles about startups you would ever read. Take the rollercoaster ride through history, case studies, bloodline, logic to see behind the obvious of the startup scaling game. Your idea about a startup is going to get changed forever.
A. What is Scaling?
Scaling refers to quickly increasing the customers, consumers, geography, and services that a business offers by ten’s multiple times.
For example, if a business is serving 100 customers daily now, as soon as it starts servicing 1000 customers daily, it is said to have scaled 10x. When it starts serving 10,000 customers, it is said to have scaled 100x from the initial customer base.
If a mango plant garden is giving 1000 fruits today and has 10 plants, then the garden is said to have been scaled by 10x if the plant has 100 plants and 10,000 fruits daily. If the productivity of each of the plants also is increased by 10x, then the same garden will produce 1,00,000 fruits daily.
B. Why are startups expected to scale in the multiples of 10x
The role of technology in providing access to something to the more non-skilled common population
A startup is a technology business. The very goal of any technology(like automation, and machines) is to reduce human effort, thereby enabling higher productivity, and thereby enabling a business to serve a large number of consumers/customers.
For example, if a large corporation has to manage all its account books manually by the accountant, it has to higher those who are mathematically good with numbers. Say in a population of 1000, such individuals will be about 10. These ten will be very high in demand, as well as overloaded with work. However, by introducing a simple calculator, this bottleneck can easily be overcome. So when the corporation grows from 1000 to 10,000 employees in serving their customers, more average people can be hired as accountants, as they just have to know the accounting and need not be necessarily good at the numbers.
Now if the same company deploys accounting software, then it can hire individuals with basic skills, and wouldn’t even require anyone to enter accounting. This is because the core accounting activities will be taken care of by the software.
📙Calculator and Accounting Example in Technology
Now you can see that people who are not good with numbers, and people who are not good with accounting can do accounting and get benefitted from the accounting processes. Before the invention of accounting software, and calculators, because skilled accountants and mathematically better professionals would be limited in numbers, smaller businesses wouldn’t be able to afford them as the large corporations would pay more money to attract and keep the talents.
But the calculator first, and then the accounting software would enable small businesses, and thereafter even the individuals to take benefit of the accounting processes.
Because technology is an automated process machine, the machine can be produced as much as needed without significantly improving the production cost.
For instance, if the ten super-skilled accountants had to discover and train another ten super-skilled accountants from the population, one of the ten would have to dedicate a significant portion of life into trying to find those with superior mathematical skills, and then having that junior individual as an assistant and then train the assistant for over the years for the junior to become skilled enough to individually handling the accounting process. Therefore, the number of companies that could be opened in that era would be limited. The number of customers or verticals such companies served would be limited. Therefore the profit of the corporation would also be limited in the past.
However, with the innovation and introduction of technology, because commoners can use and quickly adapt to the technology, more customers can be served.
Because a startup is a technology business, of course, the fundamental measure of success would not be a number of adaptations like the conventional businesses, but the rate at which this adaptation increases, and the increase in the number of users.
C. A Technology is a Moonshot, not a Miracle
We already understood that technology is simply automating the underneath processes in a system into state machines. Such machines can either be physical machines like a calculator or can even be software or virtual machines like accounting software Tally. What is most important to know is that whenever human-managed processes are to be transitioned to machines, they are to be done slowly over a period of time. This is because humans and machines both utilize energies to do actions, but machines are much more efficient in repetitive tasks, whereas humans are much better at innovative tasks. Therefore if a business manages bills, invoices, and financial notes efficiently, automating its accounting would be easy. However, if a business is unstructured in its maintenance of bills and invoices, then a human is way more efficient than a machine in finding and fixing such errors.
A classic example would be a question what is the average age of a class of five students if their ages are 32, 39, 31, 28, and 35?
If this problem is given to a machine and a human, where the human can use a calculator, then both can arrive at the same solution of 33, with equal efficiency. However, if the question is repeated what is the average age of a class of five students if their ages are 32, 3, 31, 28, and 350? Then the machine will answer 350, but a moderately skilled human will stop and ask, “wait how come someone has an age of 350 years? And is it possible that a three-year-old is in the same class as that of a 35-year-old?
📙Example of Technology use by human and machine under Anomaly
Now imagine the number of such possibilities of errors. There may be data measurement errors, observation errors, data entry errors, data formatting errors, process errors, formulation errors, etc. So a technology has to have a basic working model which is called a prototype, and then handling of such different errors is to be incorporated in the technology.
The above example of finding a mean of a class of students is a simple example. Not many classrooms will need to know the mean age of the students for any meaningful teaching purposes. However, when it comes to practical systems, such as accounting, there would be a large number of branches in the logic, a large number of error possibilities, and a large number of logical variations.
For instance, the way a software company will manage its inventory of digital goods will be way different than the way a paint manufacturing company would manage its inventory. Therefore a good accounting software technology development has to go through all these practical tests, undergo changes, withstand failures, and become robust to be a reliable replacement for skilled human professionals.
Any meaningful technology that required skilled professionals, effort, and money and were serving critical life needs of the individuals such as sea travel, hunting weapons, and agriculture, would take years if not decades for a technology to mature.
John Logie Baird started experimenting with color televisions in 1922 and obtained his first television patent in 1925. He is credited with inventing many firsts in the television technology. He also invented the color wheel namely GE 950, whereby a scene was recorded by a red, green, and blue filter, and all three frames would be projected simultaneously into the viewport to produce a color image, the way multiple sequences of photographs were displayed in the quick succession. Columbia Broadcasting Service started advertising for color television broadcasts, and general electric(GE) of the USA made the first color television prototype on Braind’s idea in the year 1945. However, actual color television started becoming popular in the USA only after the 1960s(35 years after the first prototype of the television, and 15 years after the first color television prototype).
Right Brothers had their first successful flight in the year 1903. However, it took another 30 years for the first commercial airplane to be built. Boeing 247 was the first commercial airline that could carry ten passengers, cross the USA in 20 hours, and was 50% higher in speed in comparison to Ford motor car at that time.
Karl Ferdinand Braun developed the crystal detector, the first semiconductor device, in 1874. It took almost 83 years for the first semiconductor company, Fairchild Semiconductor Inc to form in 1957 for the manufacturing of semiconductors, and another 17 years for the company to produce the first batch of commercial semicondoctors in 1974.
Charles Babbage worked on the first computer called the Analytical Engine for 40 years between 1831 to 1870, before the computer could become functional. It took another 60 years for the first mainframe computer Harvard Mark I to get built, and another 14 years for the computer to become functional by 1943. It took another 34 years for Apple to produce the first personal computer for common people.
In 1886, Carl Benz applied for the first Gas-Powered vehicle prototype, which can be regarded as the first car ever. It took another 17 years for the Ford motor company to release its first Model A car which can be regarded as the first-ever commercial car. With this the Ford motor company also established an integrated assembly line to manufacture multiple of times more car than any other companies at that time could.
D. Why a Core Technology needs other technological advancements for commercial success?
Technology is a moonshot which means, is a long game than a conventional business like hotels or restaurants. This is because technology has to serve a large amount of population and so, it has to mature first, going through several use cases, testing, adaptation, and changes, and allowing an ecosystem to develop around the technology. The invention of the airplane was not enough. There had to be an oil processing and supply industry. There had to be communication technology, there had to be airports for the airplane to be adopted by any meaningful population for any meaningful commercial success.
The invention of television was not enough for the success of television. Tremendous advancement had to be achieved in Broadcasting technologies, camera technologies, Film technology, recording methods, and Screen technology for television to be successful.
The success of the car needed innovations of the Gas stations, Road networks ideal for long car drives, motels, and other such infrastructures around the roads, improvements in the wheel technology, and finally an improvement of the manufacturing process.
So, for any technology to serve a large population with efficiency and commercial success, it not only needs adapters but also those who can constantly improve the technology, as well as those who could continuously improve on the assistive technology.
In 1989 Tim Berner’s Lee invented what we may consider the biggest fuel of the 21st century, Internet technology. However, the real boom of the Internet came in 1996 as more and more people were building Internet websites. The bubble burst in 1998. It took another five years for the stable online businesses to start existing. Internet technology needed server technology, browser technology, storage technology, and internet connection technology to improve to a level for the core technology itself to become meaningful.
E. The Firstmover often Survives the Copycon Problems
Whenever there have been a new technology, it attracted investment from those with reserved money. Men with money aligned with men with brains to create something that could serve a large population so that they can both get rich. The Silicon Valley rally as we know it today was fuelled by the Rockefeller Family, who created the first venture fund by investing their family wealth acquired in the last century through monopolized oil business into Intel’s chip manufacturing business. Venture capital grew, and Intel grew.
Up to 2006, Nokia was virtually a market leader in Mobile technology with above 90% market share. However, as the Android ecosystem started getting matured, within 2008 Nokia was almost a closed company, nowhere to be seen in the market as more mobile manufacturing companies came into the picture. The moment technology starts getting popular, many others join the bandwagon to rip the commercial benefits without having to go through the rigor of development, testing, innovation, and improvement from the core.
These are the copy con who over the ages see others become commercially successful, envision a better success, forgets the underneath culture of rigor, and wanted nothing but to benefit from technological maturity. GE was the first to develop the first Color television, but today it is hardly having any market presence in Television technology. However, many successful Television manufacturing companies like Onida and Videocon closed down, but GE still exists today as a company.
In the same way, Car technologies have gone through significant transitions from their inception. From faster cars to safer cars to most fuel-efficient cars, to now electric cars and driverless cars. There have been several companies that joined the car manufacturing segment over the years like Ferrari, Toyota, Maruti, GE, Suzuki, Honda, Hyundai, and so on. However, the Benz and Ford companies still survive even after 100 years, all due to their core culture of innovation, perseverance, and technological advancement through ecosystem maturity. From time to time, such companies face an existential crisis. However, more often or not such companies survive.
In the chip segment, today Nvidia is a market leader in GPUs, Snapdragon is the leader in the mobile processor, Arduino is the technology market leader in IoT, and Intel is a struggling company, trying to find its foothold in the modern chip market. However, it still survives and innovates new chips, and technologies, hanging onto the market.
Even though Tesla has taken the electric car segment to a whole new dimension, the traditional car makers are catching-up faster and are hanging onto the competition.
We all know that Boeing is still going stronger today in Airplane manufacturing, even though there are other players like Airbus.
Google was the first ever dedicated Internet search company. Yahoo, America Online, etc existed before it, but Google’s key principle was solving information retrieval. After 25 years of its existence, there are several other search engines like Bing, Baidu, and now ChatGPT. However, due to constant innovation, the culture of innovation, and passion for the problem of information, Google still manages to maintain its foothold in the information retrieval problem.
F. Like Copy-con Shortcut Innovators, we have Copy-Con Shortcut Capitalists
Traditional wealthy investors, such as the Rockefeller family have looked for superior inventors and looked into the possible impact of the invention, and the amount of ecosystem and associated technology development to place their money for the long-term bets. On the other hand, get-rich-quick capitalists entered the investment bandwagon, much like the copy-con, to leverage and rip the financial benefits out of the innovation.
Money is a zero-sum game, but wealth is a game of magnet; those who play long-term spend enough time, energy, emotion, and money on the problem they are solving; the wealthy investors who invest on the invention place their 100 years of bet onto such investors because both the inventor and the investors are investing onto the problem and the culture of solving the problem for them to continue to benefit for at least a century.
How Masayoshi Son changed the definition of Startup from Technology Invention to Technology Distribution
One of the classic examples of shortcut investors is Masayoshi Son. He made a lot of money through his professional growth in sales of software. When in 1996 internet started booming, Son invested his excess money into a number of early-stage internet companies. One of the companies Yahoo gave him significant returns. Unlike the Rockefeller family, who had accumulated their wealth and assets through Manufacturing and Production, Son had accumulated his money through distribution of the software. So, Son did not need to play the hardcore capital game that Rockefeller had to play in the mid-18th to early 19th century. Hence the Rockefeller blood line and their ecosystem knows the hardcore capital game, whereas Son knew the smart capital gain. Son went onto form Softbank, which lead the venture capital market for almost a decade, with aggressive investments into several startups that claimed to be disrupting the market. Today, Son’s Softbank is suffering losses that appears hardly recoverable, putting entire business at high risk.
Everyone tries to replicate their success and thinks that they know a formula for success that no one else knows. They try to repeat this formula the way a manufacturing unit repeats its processes to produce goods. Such people often underplay the luck component and other associated factors, and see their success as the Gospel truth.
Masayoshi Son earned his money through software distribution. Therefore he knew that if one could find out good software manufacturing company, get hold of the software, and then create a distribution channel, then this channel can be commercialized and large profits can be wrenched. Son had put his money from software distribution to content distribution of Yahoo. Over a period of time, those companies who were merely creating new channels(rather than slicing existing distribution channels) kept getting more investments.
Anything that is followed by many is then wrongly known as the notion or the order of the day.
Over a period of time, the distribution companies started getting more money(like Food delivery, Grocery Delivery, Content Delivery, Pharma Delivery, Cab aggregators, Hotel Aggregators, and virtually any other aggregators).
Because Son had not produced anything, and because Son had not witnessed the pain of taking a technology from the prototype to maturity, he knew that all those dumb inventors and dumb investors will spend their youth and important years and money painfully developing something, and all we need to do is get a hand onto the technology and focus on earning money from distribution.
Son’s principle was all about identifying those who could efficiently create new distribution channels with efficient technology. Whether it is Doordash or Flipkart, they use the same mobile technology of eCommerce platform to build a business around it. And so, such companies, who were merely like software or service sellers, started getting called startups.
The way Son tried to emulate his magic mantra to get more money, others who saw Son thought, “Hmm, we don’t have to earn money by selling, we can simply start as a capitalist, take the bank’s money, and invest into the bandwagon using Son’s formula to finding the companies with most efficient use of the technologies to implement efficient distribution.”
Masayoshi Son got validation for his magic mantra again in the year 2000 when he invested $20 million in another efficient distribution company called Alibaba. Alibaba played a pivotal role in connecting China’s production and manufacturing capabilities to the world.
However, Son in his early career had also got a chip built by his professors and sold it to Sharp Corporation for $1.7 million back in 1973. He also built a video game company with local video game developers and later sold the company for another $1.5 million.
Son’s core business magic mantra was then followed by the new Venture Capitalists, who saw an easy opportunity to earn quick money by investing other people’s money into such companies and then taking out the profit from the sale of the company.
G. How do Genes play a role in Business?
America to date has had 45 presidents. From 1789’s first US president George Washington to Donald Trump, what do you think is common in all the presidents in 236 years of the United States of America’s presidential history? Ah, you will say all of them are men. That is correct. However, what would surprise you is that all the US presidents to date, whether Republican or Democrat carries a single Bloodline.
Are you surprised? You need not to be surprised.
Giovani Medici’s Bloodline and Christianity
Since Florentine Banker Giovani Medici created Medici Bank in 1397, and then Giovani Medici brought back the Church to Italy by helping to end the Christianity Schism in 1414, a large number of Papacy has been the direct descendants of the Medici family.
The great schism was the great division between Eastern Roman empire Churches called the Eastern Orthodox(which followed Greek Principles), and Western Church called the Roman Catholic Church(that followed Latin) that took place in the year 1054.
Giovani Medici changed the way we know banking today. At his time Europe was divided into small states ruled by the princes. He used Christianity as the main theme to unify the princely state and offered to manage the finance of the Church. Medici became the official banking partner of the Roman Catholic Church. The more states and princes needed Church’s approval to rule, the more wealth the Church would accumulate and the more wealth the Medici bank would gain.
Giovani Medici toured the entire Europe since the early 15th century, to bring one state after the other under the Church and then finally combined the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. Not only that, Medici was an art enthusiast and valued education significantly. His children were taught by Florentine Rensesas artists like Da Vincci and Michelangelo. First forward 200 years, Galelio Galelai taught Medici family children. In fact, the first moon of Jupiter that Galileo had discovered was named after the Medici kin that he was teaching.
After the fall of Constantinople in 1452, the Medici family started funding a lot of sea explorer’s explorations including that of Christopher Columbus. And guess what was the purpose of Christopher Columbus’s tour? To spread Christianity in the new land.
Guess why the imperialists of Europe like France, England, Spain, Portugal, and the Dutch started voyaging to remote lands of Asia, Africa, and South America. Do I have to even say this? To spread Christianity! That is right. 15th Century to 20th Century European slave trader imperialists were not ruling other lands for money, or plunder, or minerals, they were just spreading Christianity and civilizing the people of such uncivilized places!
The entire European colonialism that is a slap on the face of humanity was funded by the Church, and in terms was funded by the Medici. The colonies do not exist anymore, but Medici Bank still exists, and is one of the largest Banks in Europe.
The Association of Papacy and Charlemagne
Charlemagne became the king of the Franks in 768. He was an ambitious emperor. But he saw one problem in his ambition. Europe had already so many groups like the Germans, Franks, Russians, and Anglo-Saxons (Britishers), and each group, and tribe aspired to rule the world. How to unify so many different aspiring groups?
Charlemagne, like his father, became the sole protector of the Papacy. When Papacy’s influence in Italy was challenged by the Lombards, Charlemagne came with force and displaced the Lombards. He was then declared as “Roman Emperor.” Rome had collapsed long back in 410 AD, and there was neither a Roman empire nor any Roman Emperor. However, the title “Roman Emperor” was a dream for most European princes. Everyone wanted to be seen as the flag bearer of the Roman empire, as that would mean easy acceptance by the general population in any place they invade and rule.
Charlemagne after being declared by the Church as Roman Emperor, (which had no meaning as Church itself had no power back then), Church’s approval became essential for any ruler.
Therefore the Medici family, Charlemagne family continued to bank and rule.
The association of the Rockefeller Family and US Presidents
Charlemagne was from the Rhineland(a place on the river Rhine of Germany) and was given rest to peace after death on the banks of the Rhine.
Interestingly the family that funded the Modern Medicine, and Venture Capitalism Rockefeller family originated from? You are now a good guesser. Yes, but obviously the Rockefeller family Originated from Rhineland. Is it even a surprise to know that the Rockefeller family has been donating a large sum of capital in the US presidential elections? Irrespective of the parties, they would obviously have to find the brotherly bloodline of the family to get access to the funding. Therefore all the US presidents belong to the Charlemagne bloodline because Charlemagne was from the Rhineland, and so was the Rockefeller family.
I would leave it for you to trace back the family of Intel’s founder Noyce who secured the first venture fund as we know it today.
You may be asking now, what the hell is the correlation of bloodline and genes with modern businesses and startups?
You see, from the US presidents to the imperialists to the venture funding, a limited group of people have controlled the important power centers of the world. Those who deal with the power are exceptionally careful about the bloodline. Throughout the middle ages, European royal marriages have taken place based on bloodline.
Throughout history the nature of the power has shifted: from Roman Empire to Christianity, to Imperialism, to Technology, but the power has remained in the hands of a close group of people.
H. However, Genes have nothing to do with modern VC funding. Or don’t they?
The generally accepted norm in the power structure is that proven ancestry can be better relied upon and trusted when it comes to power. Technology is indeed the modern power. Now if you closely observe the Indian startup ecosystem(or, the so-called startup ecosystem), most of the so-called Unicorns are the platform businesses that come from the Son’s theory of using an existing technology and innovating the distribution channel. Indian startups have mainly been Sales or Service providing startups or Content providing startups. They include Flipkart, Ola, Oyo, and Zomato.
And when you look into the founding teams of this startup, a majority of them belong to the “Baniya community,” a traditional Hindu community that has been doing business for generations. Obviously, if a community or a family bloodline is into trading, distribution, and selling for over 300 years, then with the access of money they can scale their customer network and create new distribution channels and thus business opportunities. These are not new markets, but rather slicing of the existing market.
One of the earliest Indian startups Byjus got funding for Edutech and became one of the largest Edutech brands, was founded by Byjus Rajendran, a Malayali, and a teacher. So, he ticked the qualities like Jack Ma, who was also a teacher, and a bloodline that has a heavy genetic Adimixture of Armanian genes. Armenians constitute one of the most influential populations in the silicon valley.
Not only do the Armenians construct the influential Silicon Valley network, but they were also one of the early Biblical people. One of the largest Armanian populations got settled in Egypt in a place called Armana, where the first Monoethist God and religion was created by Pharao Akhenaten on and around 1350 BCE.
Let me now unveil the bloodline of Robert Noyce the founder of Intel. His father was a Christian Scholar and a preacher, a clergy.
What is most important is that the technology-enabled growth, like any other growth at any pocket of history, would remain with few people, who have been holding the power since millenniums. In between some random people would be funded, and promoted to eliminate any patterns that raise people’s eyebrows about any genetic or bloodline involvement.
If some random innovators or founders somehow manage to accelerate some technologies, then obviously there are easy ways to create competition and pump money into the competitor to kill the original business. And this new competitor who would succeed would anyways belong to the same power structure.
If you ever wondered why with such good technology, business model, profitability, fundamentals, and deck you have not managed to get any funding, then today with this article you uncovered a truth. Because it is true, you will not believe it anyways. That is the beauty of powerful truth as well as the truth of power. You will continue to chase investment and make better decks, while the power structure will always be hunting for their own people who will help them to keep the power, like the US presidents.
I. So why are startups pushed for scaling?
There is a proverb in Hindi “Jo dikhta hai, wohi bikta hai” (one that is seen is the one that is sold). However, if you believe that money is poured into the so-called startups to motivate more people to adopt technology, then you can not be wrong. Like the powerful genes, there is another genetic bloodline called the “herd mentality” genes. Long back they were the foragers, and they kept hopping from one place to another with their animal herds. This genetic line of people loves to stay in the herd, and love to do what others are doing. Because they have maintained the animal herds, it is hard for them to think beyond the herd.
State machinery, society, religion, and every other such structure were created to control these herds. The herd would follow the God the powerful will decide, and live life under the fear of that God, donating their earnings from time to time to God, which obviously goes to some handful of families.
The power structure has survived and thrived by squeezing the blood and resources of the people with her genes. Such people are to be always kept in a group, and then you have to spread a concept into the group fast enough for everyone to desire that. If you donate one car to a herd of 1000, the rest 999 will feel threatened by this and would want the car for themselves. They will work super hard to earn money to get the car. Then when they have worked enough, they will give away that money to the same power structure to drive the car. Then as there are more cars in the herd, more and more people would become greedy for the car. You can simply convert these people into bounded labors by offering them a loan. The greedy people of the herd would then remain a slave of power for the rest of their life just so that they are not left out of the car-owning herd.
You can introduce anything from Laptop, Mobile, and Housing, and the trait would remain the same.
Some of these in the herd will appear the potential priests who can group a large number of followers so that the followers can be enslaved with some tools. These priests are then funded by the powers to advance their game. Once enough amount of greed and envy is created in the herd, and an object is converted into a mass-desire object in a way that the object appears necessary part of life, the priest’s role would finish!
By the time a core technology gets created, some other technologies, that are part of the ecosystem are made popular. Priests and their followers then advance the technology(or the feel of it), when the actual future power game is built elsewhere.
Scaling is a magic
We do know now that power is a game of centuries and millenniums. Anything that appears to break the natural laws is magic. Any magic needs to be done fast. Magic is performed by creating an illusion by targeting people’s imaginary brains through the quickness of hands.
The modern form of Magic was “invented” by Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, the son of a clockmaker from France. He also apprenticed with his father, who was known to be the last clockmaker who made old-fashioned hand-crafted clocks. Houdin while purchasing a Clickmaking Treatise book mistakenly got a pair of science mystery books. Instead of returning them, he got engrossed with the books. He then paid 10 francs to a local amusement artist to learn the basic magic tricks. He started practicing magic, as well as started performing in upper-class social parties. Till his time, magic was only shown by amateurs in the local fairs and trades for the amusement of the crowd. Houdin took the magic to the next level by taking it to the theatres and making the art of magic a favorite entertainment of the wealthy.
Houdini performed some of the most extraordinary escape arts that made him a worldwide celebrity.
Houdin not only conducted shows in Paris but also went to America to perform. All the French greats ended up in America in some way or the other!
Fascinatingly, making a handcrafted watch was like magic. So many small parts are to be joined precisely to form a machine and the machine then needs to work in certain ways for it to become useful. Now people get so used to this craftsmanship that it doesn’t excite them anymore, and it doesn’t entice their imagination. Now imagine an Eifel tower size of the watch being built in the same way. Same part, but bigger. Building such a clock would require similar hand craftsmanship but on the stage, the parts would be bigger. Wouldn’t that be a great spectacle than looking at your boring hand watch?
If a Grocery shop is serving 1000 customers a month, even that requires an immense business skill. Such a small grocery shop requires customer management, inventory management, financial management, prediction and analytics, customer behavior analytics, value based competitive edge, customer retention, credit management, vendor management. So many pieces of a grocery machine are to be put in together through the fine craftsmanship of business for a Grocery shop to keep serving customer profitably. Isn’t it?
Now look at this grocery shop as the watch that Houdini made. Fine business craftsmanship, fine parts put together skillfully, and the skills are repeated every day. How about making this watch look like a watch as big as an Eifel Tower? Wouldn’t that draw people’s imagination? Houdini created these grand shows where he would be chained and dropped into the Ocean from where he would escape unhurt. This was an illusion. But if he showed vanishing a rubber ball on the stage, from beneath a handkerchief, some people will clap. But if he could replace the rubber ball with a human, and himself, and instead of keeping the rubber ball human in a glass, in the ocean, and the handkerchief was replaced by the chains, wouldn’t people be amazed by that seen?
Houdini converted amusement and claps to the amazement and adrenaline-based entertainment. That is exactly the principle of the whole notion of scaling. Present a big grand illusion to people, and this will amaze the wealthy, and draw admiration from the crowd.
Now imagine a small 10 sqFeet grocery shop delivering Groceries to one million customers every day, instead of its capacity of a thousand. Imagine a Hen flying cross country to Siberia. Imagine a young child prodigy solving Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, imagine a Roman emperor driving a Ford car, wouldn’t a view of such an imagination amaze you? wouldn’t experiencing such imagination excite you? Would you not admire that hen, that Roman empire(or Ford company to teleport a car back in the history to a Roman emperor). Wouldn’t you want to know more about that medicine which made thee hen fly cross country to Siberia? If you had money, wouldn’t you want to have the teleport machine to go to the past? Wouldn’t you want to invest in the kid who is solving Heisenberg’s equation at an age when Einstein barely could speak? If you had money and the opportunity, wouldn’t you actually want to become the first Roman empire to drive a Ford car? Why Ford car, wouldn’t you want to be the first Roman emperor to drive a Space X rocket?
One of the weakest and weirdiest Human psychology around money is that it statrts making people think that if one has enough money, enough imaginations can be brought into reality, and enough impossibilities can be made possible!
Would you not want to own a Chicken that gave golden eggs every day? Of course, there are magics, how else can the rich be so rich? Of course, there are people who know things that you don’t know and that is why they have become so rich even though you worked harder. And all these are the beliefs you would start developing the moment you see so many others like you believing in the same principles.
Just as the Rockefeller family, and VCs like them who carries family wealth, and a history of power look for people with ancestry their ancestor trusted, the way Masayoshi Son looks for those who can sell the technology in an innovative way in a new distribution channel, the same way new Venture Capitalists are Houdini followers who create the grand illusion of scaling so that the rich can be amused to spend money into the shows, and the poor can be made clowns in the show. The way the Siberian hen would make the rich amused, the same way a superhuman called founder who can increase his customer by a factor of 10 every month would amuse the rich and amaze the crowd.
People want to be part of the amazement, and people want to spend for amusement. The magic of money lies to combine them with the fine craftsmanship of Houdini money.
J. Why Scaling is mathematically improbable
When a grand show of Houdini illusion is constructed, no one standing in the crowd would dare to say, “Look this is utter nonsense.” Even if and even when one is smart enough to see the trick, one would never reveal it standing amongst an amazed crowd. This is simply because a crowd sees a magic show, to escape from the harsh reality of pain. This is their pleasure where their imagination is right. There is no fight or flight, no danger, and the danger can actually be solved by magic. The realists have never revealed the magic tricks in the middle of a magic show. Nothing is more dangerous than going against the crowd who has escaped reality. Because if you challenge the crowd and say that their current escape from pain is unreal, you risk your life.
Therefore the key to any illusion or magic is to repeat the show multiple times, before a large crowd so that the crowd can validate “Yes, I watched it, it is real.” Yes, a coaching center can be worth billions of dollars. Indeed thousands of waiters in the scooter make the group worth Billions. Indeed getting Groceries at home is worth Billions. I know, I have read. Media has shown. My uncle in Silicon Valley has confirmed.
But we in Lyfas try every day to help you get back control of your life from the hands of the illusionists and the Charlemagnes and the Medicis and the Rockefellers. We try to give you the reality buried beneath layers and layers of Rocks from classic gaslighting techniques from history. So, calling out illusion is not enough. We also show you the science of why an illusion is an illusion.
The science of why scaling doesn’t work
Any natural phenomenon in the universe follows a simple Gaussian distribution or bell curve.
The Gaussian normal distribution has been the observed pattern in:
Population, Economy, Heart Rate, Energy, Growth, and so on. The only principle where the curve hasn’t been tested is Moore’s law, which maps the semiconductor density in a unit surface.
Because starting from the creation of the stars in a Nebula to the lifecycle of a star system, to the age of a planet, everything follows Gaussian distribution, Moore’s law is bound to follow the same simply because it is within human population Gaussian law.
For Example when a few years back, artificial rainfall was attempted in a part of the Sahara, the exact same amount of land got deforested in the Amazon basin(thousands of miles away).
Imperialism started in the 16th century, picked by 1750, and was gone by 1945.
So by the rule, the faster you scale and acquire the market, by the time you reach the pick, the market shifted(see Facebook growth). Slow growth enables you to follow the market dynamics.
Kongō Gumi Co., Ltd. is the longest-living company(1450 years old). They construct, repair, and maintain temples. They have never tried to scale beyond Japan or obtained Toilet maintenance into their Vertical. From Mongol Invasion to the plague to the world war, the company survived all the major devastating events.
K. Conclusion
Given an opportunity, what do you want to become? A Charlemagne whose descendants are still ruling the world after 1200 years of his death, or a Steve Jobs, who unlocked your imagination, amazed you and earned some wealth, but the family has no power.
The pitch deck, team, idea, prototype, business model, revenue projection, presentation, pitching, advisors, metric, growth, all are propos and part of the magic show. The game of power, played with a magic wand not only needs spectators, but needs one to believe in it through tools, and commiting to the beliefs.
This is a question only you can answer, and only you have to select the answer. Only your intellect can tell you if you want to be part of the illusion of scaling, or if you want that power with which a handful is putting kids on steroids and making them run for their life to manage the startup magic. It is only you who has to decide if you believe in the Mathematics of a Gaussian distribution or the magic of the illusion.
Remember, a startup builds a technology. Technology is power. There are forces that control that power. You are not trying to win the market, but your real fight is against that power structure. The market will always be with you when you free it from the illusionists. It is none but your genes that will decide if you are going to be part of the herd, become a priest, become a prince, or a ruler who wants to create a technological dynasty for generations to come.
I do know that reality always hurts. It is harsh. Reality is painful. But the truth is freedom. Remember, we are not enslaved by anyone but our own internal beliefs, and our strong desire to escape reality into a comforting fantasy. I know the end of a movie hurts. I know the end of a magic show hurts. I know magic getting revealed hurts. I know this article would hurt. I know there would be surprises and disbelief. And I know nothing would change because amazement and amusements are key to entertainment and fantasy.
🛒Buy the eBook of this Article for only ₹199(Rupees One Hundred Ninety Nine Only)
(6098 words, 34 pages, fully formatted, ready to print, bind, and keep as an asset)
If you want to get the eBook of this article to print and bind to keep on your bookshelf or to give the printed bind book as a reading gift to your child or loved one to help your loved one understand and deal with the subject better, then please UPI ₹199 to <9845048861> and share the screenshot in email rupam[dot]iics[at]gmail[dot]com, with the title of this post. Purchased eBook provides you with ownership, printing, and gifting rights.
(Available in Multiple Languages. Should you prefer any other language, please specify the language in your email)
(And you know that this article will be removed from the internet very soon, and you know the obvious reasons)
For the men who want to understand love and its principles more deeply here is the book for you.