90% of what you've been taught is wrong

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THIS WEEK’S LESSON

90% of what we’ve been taught about entrepreneurship, business strategy, and marketing is wrong.

At least that’s what my mentors say. And since they’re wildly successful, I believe it.

Now it’s easy to say provocative things — for clicks, engagement, retweets, and so on …

But that’s not what’s happening here.

The reason that 90% of what you’ve been taught is wrong is that it’s based on the past.

Heard of product market fit? The problem with that framework is that it is rooted in conventional wisdom …

The way it is. The way it’s always been done.

But to be a legendary entrepreneur, you have to do something different. You have to create a new future.

Or not — at your own peril.

Blockbuster could have bought Netflix.

They were the largest movie rental retailer in the USA. Then came along Netflix. It saw a different future. They Rejected the Premise.

First it was DVDs to your house via mail (no brick and mortar necessary on every corner). Then they created the category of streaming. Still the Category Queen of streaming too.

So how’d they do it?

By rejecting the premise they showed us a future they could see and dropped it into the present.

How to to create the future …

Step into the future and backcast

In Pattern Breakers (my fav book of 2024), Mike Maples Jr. talks about a concept called backcasting — which is different than forecasting.

Forecasting uses past and present data to project what the future holds. This leads to incremental changes and assumes that the world is mostly the same in the future as it is now.

Backcasting is different. It’s about exponential improvement and believes that current assumptions about products and markets are different in the future.

Backcasting becomes breakthrough when you combine an insight with an inflection.

I’m living proof.

My insight: there were other school leaders around the world like me who wanted to collaborate and reimagine education.

The inflection: The podcast Serial released October 3, 2014 and generated a wave of interest in this new media platform. Around that time I also started listening to Entrepreneur on Fire — a daily pod about where entrepreneurs shared stories of success and failure.

My second insight: Who was digging into all things leadership + education?

The answer: Not many.

The rest is history. Today my show ranks in the top 0.5% of 3M+ worldwide pods and has 2M+ downloads since 2015.

Draft a POV

A strong POV incorporates what Category Designers call a FROTO.

FROTO just means FROM → TO.

It’s about moving away from the way things are to a new, different way in the future.

I was told that my POV was legendary because I was the first Category Pirate to actually include the words FROM and TO in my POV for my principal facing business.

It goes like this:

Ruckus Makers Do School Different … making shifts FROM old, broken, and traditional ways of educating TO new, different, and creative ways.

I can riff on that from 30 seconds to multiple days depending on how keyed-in the audience is.

What precedes my FROTO is this:

Education is slow to change. Play-It-Safe-Principals maintain the status quo and excel at administration. Everything they can do, they learned in a binder.

Our students deserve a different experience. There’s no manual for reinventing education.

What’s required is Leadership and Innovation. That’s what we mean when we say Ruckus Makers Do School Different.

You know you nailed your POV because it acts like a magnet.

Those who NEVER would have done business with you are repelled like amateurs from a blank canvas. While everyone else will be attracted because they hear these words and think …

“Where have you been my whole life?”

Some considerations while visiting the future and drafting your POV …

My mentors often say that thinking about thinking is the most important kind of thinking.

So put on your thinking cap, and get ready to make your brain sweat.

Frame a different problem or opportunity.

In my business the problem is tradition or the Status Quo which is championed by Play-It-Safe-Principals.

Ruckus Makers believe:If education ain’t a bit disruptive, then what are the students really learning?

Labeling the current reality’s problem is foundational for your POV.

At times I also talk about professional development that is Too-Little-Too-Late, Unhelpful, and Disconnected.

The opposite is Relevant, Responsive, and Results oriented.

By pulling on the edges of the PD continuum people shake their heads YES or NO. This is what you want.

In summary:

• Product market fit is wrong because it accepts how things are

• Category Designers Reject the Premise

• The most successful Former Educator Founders create a new future

• They leverage backcasting

• And do the hard work of creating a compelling POV