It’s tempting to believe that it’s possible to create a system in which nothing ever goes wrong. Real-life systems always prove otherwise—count on it. The theory of Normal Accidents is a more formal way of expressing a universal proverb: shit happens. In a tightly coupled system, small risks accumulate to the point where errors and accidents are in

The best way to break a potential prospect’s Preoccupation is to provoke a feeling of curiosity, surprise, or concern.

People don’t buy quarter-inch drills; they buy quarter-inch holes. —THEODORE LEVITT, ECONOMIST AND FORMER PROFESSOR AT HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL

Incentive-Caused Bias explains why people with a vested interest in something will tend to guide you in the direction of their interest. We touched on the idea of Incentive-Caused Bias when talking about Buffers. If you’re working with an agent who’s paid on commission, it’s not necessarily in their best interest to tell you that purchasing somethi

Take what you hear with a grain of salt. Even the most discouraging Feedback contains crucial pieces of information that can help you make your offering better.

Make something people want … There’s nothing more valuable than an unmet need that is just becoming fixable. If you find something broken that you can fix for a lot of people, you’ve found a gold mine.

The end result of this effort is an Income Statement, which is sometimes called a “Profit and Loss Statement,” “Operating Statement,” or “Earnings Statement.” Regardless of the label, the Income Statement contains an estimate of the business’s Profit over a certain period of time, once revenue is matched with the related expenses.

If your intent is to be self-sufficient and free to make your own decisions, it’s much better to avoid financing in favor of retaining control. Bootstrapping is the art of building and operating a business without Funding. Don’t assume that the only way to create a successful business is by raising millions of dollars of Venture Capital—it’s simply

Signals sometimes have little or nothing to do with the reality of what the signal is supposed to communicate. In The Millionaire Next Door, Thomas Stanley and William Danko describe the lives and habits of people who have a net worth of over $1 million. More often than not, they live in modest houses, drive used cars, and buy inexpensive clothing.