binary thinking

there is more than one way to do things right

👋🏼 hello, I’m fabri

Binary rules have very much shaped the understanding of our modern world.

Our society loves to identify true versus false. On vs off. Left vs right. Black vs white. Straight vs gay. Right vs wrong. Everything needs to always be thoroughly explained and widely understood.

I’m confident that the pendulum will swing back from this scientific approach that much characterized our last century. AI and quantum computing are signaling that even in the realm of computer science and machines, we humans don’t need to always know how stuff happens, and that’s ok.

I feel lucky to have a career in growth. Unlike hard sciences, there are many best ways to win a growth game and in this piece I’d like to take you along my learnings on what happens when swapping binary with plural inputs.

Imagine a game of chess where the rules and behaviour of the players change with every move

I’m someone who lived in five countries. I can assure you that this chess analogy above is very life-like. Everything, constantly, changes.

Each and every tweak of a given environment causes downstream effects. Those changes can either be intentional or not but will always have potential for massive upsides or catastrophic consequences.

Know that, just like life, business behaves the same way.

Nonetheless, growing a business has traditionally been understood as a very binary equation. Scale distribution or improve margins. A constant race to maximize shareholder value.

Given that every lemon has a limited potential for juice, this economic model is very much a zero sum game. A very binary output to a very binary input.

Customers should come before shareholders

Companies that focus on maximizing customer value instead of shareholders’ behave more like lemon tree growers rather than lemon juice purveyors. These companies act like platforms which their customers perceive essential to thrive in their own lives.

By taking a non-binary approach (customer needs are very different from one another) they constantly re-aligning their own priorities to the ones of the market thus creating an endless flywheel of business opportunities.

I’m not suggesting you build a product for every customer. You can increase margins, saturation and build a moat for your business just by way of changing how you present its offering.

Focusing on the emotional component of a business, its brand and relative positioning, is as essential to said business’ growth as its product and distribution.

Don’t take my word for it, watch this great presentation from NYU school of business Sonia Marciano’s on how Subaru increased their marketshare by 1% just by nailing its positioning.

By listening to its customers Subaru learnt that instead of its racing and off-roading heritage drivers were much more attracted by the brand safety records. As it turns out the market for apprehensive parents is much bigger than Subaru’s original positioning. 30% bigger to be precise.

The key is to purposely focus on the best way to maximizes value as perceived by the customer. Customer first, always.

Swapping shareholders binary needs to embrace instead the life-like-mess that are your customers will elevate your play by un-bundling your business growth from traditional industrial dynamics.

It’s a though exercise especially under the constant expectations to get validation of your theories before ever applying them to real life. You must remember however that outside of the highly controlled environment of a lab there isn’t such thing as a right or wrong answer.

The scientific approach that drives your subconscious is preventing you from thinking beyond binary terms. Try asking the question: “if you were to start from scratch, knowing what you know today about this market, how would you do things differently?”

You’ll discover that business, just like life, isn’t binary.