For Founders, for Free, Forever: the story of the Three Strikes Theory newsletter so far
333 subscribers in 3 months. 7,000+ views of 18 articles. Loads of great feedback. Amazing stories shared... where to from here?
Hello, thanks for reading today’s post. It is specifically for you.
So far I have written a number of case studies including the events that led to disaster for a well capitalised listed corporate and a boot-strapping scale up, as well as the great success stories of a well timed startup and what became the worlds most valuable company.
I watched these events unfold with my own eyes, having first or second row seats, or having the tale retold to me by people who were right in the middle of these companies.
It made me try to figure out why these things happened. Why the leaders of these companies failed to navigate through the strikes of bad luck. Why the convergence of two strikes put them into disaster… and why the interplay or three strokes led to great success. I figured this out and developed the “Three Strikes Theory”, or more accurately Three Strikes Theory™ due to a generous donation of a trademark registration from one of our subscribers - thank you David!
Three Strikes Theory™: companies of any size, stage or type, are only ever three strikes away from disaster… or three strokes away from success.
David doesn’t like the “strokes” word, and thinks I should only be referring to positive or negative “strikes”, what do you think?
Your feedback is important because my mission is to make the Three Strikes Theory™ easily accessible, understandable and implementable by business leaders everywhere.
To survive we need to identify when a strike has occurred, as if we had the benefit of hindsight.
In all of the disastrous case studies I mentioned above, the leaders did indeed identify when a strike had occurred, but they failed to adequately assess the risks as if they had the benefit of hindsight, and were blind sighted by the convergent timing of two of the strikes.
In the story of the listed corporate the first and second strike converged which triggered the third. In the story of the scale up the first strike put them into a precarious position - which they never actually felt as precarious - and the convergence of the second and third strikes put them into disaster.
I say “felt” and “feel” deliberately because both companies had smart people on large Boards with risk registers practicing good governance. Identifying the strike is easy, assessing the risk is intellectual, but we tend to take action based on our feelings - and none of these smart people (including myself in one instance!) never felt the risk.
I do admit that a single strike can also be fatal, and have written about that kind of extinction level event.
I also alerted you all to the biggest news story of internet history which has gone almost completely unreported and could be a strike for any business with a website. This threat has progressed dramatically over the last few months and has come to the attention of the United Nations, who asked my good friend Ricky Sutton to brief them on the risks.
Have any of you seen your website traffic crash?
Search Generative Experience, now called AI Overviews has been rolled out everywhere except Australia (I guess we are once again the “lucky” country, but not forever)
In the great success stories of both the startup and the trillion dollar company, it was outstanding strategy (and good luck along the way) that enabled the interplay of three strokes to deliver a great success. What both of these companies did was form a view of the future, base their strategy on it, and get lucky along the way. It is luck by the way, because in both of the above examples, if one of the any of the three strokes had not happened the interplay of the strokes would not have put those companies into a position of great success.
I wrote about the future because I feel strongly that if we can predict it to some degree (as the two examples above successfully have) then we can put ourselves and our companies in good lucks way as that future unfolds - enabling three strokes to occur.
To reinforce this point I wrote a number of articles about the future of different industries and contextualised how related companies I am in touch with are positioned to win, have a look at the futures of Transport, Food and Energy.
Last week I shared an article from the futurist I follow (because his predictions keep coming true and his reasoning is based on straightforward economics) about the disruption of labour by humanoid robots. I strongly encourage us all to read that one. It sounds crazy, but will be obvious in hindsight (just like it’s obvious to us now that cars replaced horses).
So what are the three strokes that will make this newsletter into a great success?
First Stroke - formulating the theory over 2 decades
Second Stroke - committing every Saturday morning to write articles I think are worth sharing
Third Stroke - subscribers turn into active advocates, each recommending to two people they know
What dos success look like? Well, Three Strikes Theory™ has 333 subscribers as of the time of this writing.. I’m hoping that each of you can think of two people you know who might find value in these articles, and recommend they have read. If each of you does that, we’ll hit 1,000 subscribers - and THAT would be a very grand success!
You can use the link below, but I recommend sending via SMS, WhatsApp or personal email, with a personal message… because it’s the most genuine.
So…
Next week I am going to write about YOU - the subscribers in our community. I use the words “our” and “community” deliberately because thats what it should be:
A community of people who understand the Three Strikes Theory™, who believe it is valuable enough to share.
Three Strikes Theory is free, forever - so please help me share it.
I also want to showcase who is in our community. Not the individuals, but the organisations you lead. I think this is important because if you know who is in our community then you can choose to participate in that community. I have already introduced some of you to each other which was very beneficial for both parties. I think many of you could do business together. It would be my pleasure to make a personal introduction… to introduce you, to anyone else in our community (after I check with them and they agree) - just ask.
Signing off for now, and remember.. when I climb mountains (which I do quite a lot), I think about Three Strikes Theory™… and when I write, I do it for you.