2 years ago now, I had to stop exercising. Fortunately, I’ve begun running & cycling again, but it’s still been 2 years since I played soccer competitively, which has been hard, given I played from age 4 to 33 on a largely daily basis.
I think I’ve been missing the game subconsciously, because I’ve been dreaming about teams I’ve played on, great games, and the plays, movements, and techniques that give the game so much texture.
Recently, I had a dream in which I mulled over the components that underly the sport:
the assisting pass to split a defense and free a forward on goal
the shot that screams past the keeper and rattles the back of the net
the sliding tackle that recovers the ball from a sprinting attacker with some brilliant combination of force and finesse
the head swivel in a crowded midfield
the first touch under heavy pressure
And the list could go on and on (and I’ve added to the list below for the ex-soccer players who find this rabbit hole fun)…
As I reflected on the components that make soccer such a dynamic and engaging sport, I began to think about the components that make the founding and building of companies so interesting, difficult, and rewarding. Like soccer, and any sport for that matter, the components of founding & building require not only discrete skills, but also mental and emotional dexterity to ride the twin waves of setback and success.
Below are a few thoughts exploring the components of company building, in what is mostly a nod of appreciation to the incredible game of market economies & the beautiful club that is Arsenal (:-).
Understanding an Inflection:
Arsene Wenger was a legendary coach of Arsenal (my child-hood club). He revolutionized the British Premier League because he realized before anyone else that a significant inflection would change the way all professional sports teams would operate. The inflection was that the lifestyle of professional athletes at large, and European soccer players, more locally, would evolve from a lifestyle of games on Saturday or Sunday that were followed by late night binge drinking in bars and pubs… to a lifestyle wherein athletes would live committed to excellent sleep patterns, disciplined dietary regimens, and data-driven muscular recovery programs.
Building a successful company requires entrepreneurs to identify and capitalize on inflections, or sea changes within markets. Inflection points are moments of change that create new opportunities capable of rapidly undercutting the power of stalwart businesses. Entrepreneurs who can understand inflection points can dislodge incumbent businesses. However, identifying an inflection point requires not only the ability to pull oneself out of the present and imagine a future that doesn’t yet exist, but also the emotional intelligence capable of understanding the needs of their customers, employees, and stakeholders today.
Identification of an Insight:
Wenger understood that an inflection in the way athletes would sleep, eat, and recover would change the game forever, but in order to capitalize on that understanding, he had to have an insight about how to pull that future forward and ensure that Arsenal, the club (and the business), was the club that would capitalize (not bitter rivals Alex Ferguson and Manchester United). To do this, he had to uncover a secret, which in hindsight seems obvious, but at the time would have been hard to see. That secret was that he would need move away from legendary veterans of the club and build Arsenal’s future around young, unproven players from France, Africa, and Holland — players who had not been engrained with British pub culture, players who would import a flare, finesse, and possession to England, where the game was often one of teams bludgeoning eachother for 90 minutes with long-balls, bone-crunching slide tackles and last-minute winners from corners in the mud-pits of the 6-yard box. Wenger would change the subject with a secret — the secret would be that in order to capitalize on a future in which the best teams had the healthiest players, he would have to build around a type of player with the following attributes:
young, so willing to listen & have their habits influenced deeply in the early years of their career (players, like Bergkamp, Henry, Viera, Pires)
not British, so unaccustomed to British drinking culture
French or Dutch, so better at possession, passing, and dribbling than most British players
Underlying this insight was a groundbreaking change to the European game, and ~25 years later, the Premier League is the most exciting sporting experience in the world (my 2 cents).
Company builders who can identify insights that others miss can create groundbreaking products and services. Insights can come from observing customers' behaviors, analyzing data, or synthesizing information from different sources. But at the end of the day, identifying an insight requires that entrepreneurs “earn a secret” about the future predicated on a delicate balance between customers' needs and pain points today and the inflections that will yield a very different future tomorrow. Obviously, this is very hard to get right and many fail, but the task at hand is deep customer empathy combined with a willingness to challenge assumptions in the pursuit of new ways of doing business that are markedly better than the status quo.
Selection of Customers Who Can Pull a Vision of the Future Forward:
For any sports manager, the primary responsibility is player selection. The ‘99 & ‘00 season saw Wenger make a couple of player selections that would, two years later, produce the Invincible Season (when Arsenal went undefeated in the premier league, a feat never before or since accomplished). First, Wenger replaced Nicolas Anelka with Thierry Henry, and then Marc Overmars with Robert Pires. The selection proved prescient, and both players, but Henry especially, would do more to pull forward Wenger’s vision of what both Arsenal, and the Premier League, could be — the epicenter of the most exciting soccer on earth.
Successful entrepreneurs understand that not all customers are created equal. Some customers are simply early adopters, while others have the potential to become long-term partners in building a company. Entrepreneurs who can identify and cultivate these visionary customers — customers who share the entrepreneur’s belief about the future — can leverage the reputation of their customers, as well as their insights and feedback, to refine their products and services & attract entire markets to their vision. These visionary customers are arguably the most powerful force for entrepreneurial success, because startup & customer establish a shared vision of the future that inspires entire markets to move in their direction.
Wrapping up
Like Arsene Wenger, who revolutionized the British Premier League by selecting visionary players who could pull forward his vision of the future, company builders can apply similar principles to found & grow successful companies.
Key in all of this, during the early stages, is an interest in imagining the future driven by inflections, the hard & empathetic work to earn a secret about a new & better way for customers to be served, and the intentionality of customer selection.
For entrepreneurs, here are a few resources that have been particularly useful for me:
Appendix
Further down the rabbit hole of the beautiful game’s great component parts :-)
the deft fake to throw a defender off balance
the dribble at full sprint to create space
the 1v1 move to beat the defender in the attacking third
the dive to win a penalty, despite a fair challenge
the foul, sometimes purposeful to bring an attacker down, and other times accidental when the opponent has been first to the ball
the defensive header in the box off a corner
the offensive header to redirect a free-kick on goal
the shoulder to shoulder challenge on the flank between fleet-footed wingers
the referee’s decisions both good and bad, essential and sometimes maddening
the shit-talk between opposing players, to throw each other off, to jive, to intimidate, to banter
the chest trap that caresses the ball from a 30-yard switch
the ping that strikes the ball on a rope with backspin