In this talk, the speaker draws a vivid analogy between colossal pumpkin farmers and highly successful entrepreneurs, arguing that both achieve outsized results by focusing on a critical 5% of practices. He recounts a year spent studying giant pumpkin growers in New Jersey, discovering that their edge lies in meticulous seed selection, which mirrors the entrepreneurial need to choose a unique, passion‑driven, and idiosyncratic foundation. The speaker outlines a three‑part “seed” for business success: (1) Uniqueness – a blend of deep personal passion and distinctive quirks that set the founder apart; (2) Repeatable customer demand – ensuring that the market not only buys once but returns repeatedly; and (3) Scalability/Systemization – building processes that allow the business to operate and grow autonomously. He illustrates each component with examples, such as the high‑priced pumpkin seeds that can yield half‑ton pumpkins, the pitfalls of relying on trend‑chasing or passion without demand (e.g., Oscar Wilde’s lack of market fit), and the importance of systematizing delivery and revenue collection. The talk concludes by urging entrepreneurs to locate the intersection of these three circles, positioning it as the “seed” that can transform an ordinary venture into a colossal, self‑sustaining enterprise.
Chapters
I'm from, originally from Boonton, New Jersey. And we have this newspaper, we did have this newspaper called the Citizen. And on the backside was a story and it says, new Jersey farmer grows half ton pumpkin. There's a picture of this fella leaning against this huge pumpkin in there. The journalist interviewed the farmer and said, how do you grow such an extraordinary Pumpkin? And his first words were, it's only 5% different than what the other guys do. So what I did was I called this guy, he's right here in New Jersey too, actually down this way in the Bordentown area. His name was Chuck. And I spent a year studying pumpkin farmers, colossal pumpkin farmers, or as we call it, Lord of the gourds, if you're in the club. I spent a year with these guys and gals studying how to grow a colossal pumpkin and discovered the 5% of things that they do. Which coincidentally is the 5% of things that wildly, colossally successful entrepreneurs do. Step one, it's seed selection. You know, the ordinary pumpkin farmer. And when I say ordinary pumpkin farmer, this is when Halloween comes in a couple weeks from now, we're going to go out to the pumpkin fields and you're going to be with your children and your spouse looking around for a pumpkin. You look for the most round one you can. If your children like my children, they find the most deformed one they can, that looks like my mother in law and tries to persuade me to buy it. Basically, pumpkins are kind of boring things. If you go where I go, there's a huge feel and you kind of ignore some. You often step on a couple and crunch them down. The only pumpkins that catch attention ultimately are the crazy colossal ones. Sometimes these farms have one stored on the side near that huge pumpkin and you'll see everyone running there. The colossal pumpkin farmer is highly selective of their seed. They look for this thing called veinage. They look at the seed under a microscope to evaluate its potential to grow in their soil. A single seed. The best potential seeds, this is no lie, can go for $1,500 a single pumpkin seed, but it can yield a half ton or now they broke a one ton record. A one ton pumpkin. You know, the ordinary, the ordinary entrepreneur is after the easy seed you can spread anywhere. It's called trends. You know what's hot? Ten years ago, entrepreneurs, for example, some entrepreneurs were jumping into real estate. You can make so much money. Yeah, my business is okay, but if I buy a building and sell a building, I'll make money. There it was, the hot Trend. Five years ago, flash animation for websites, now social media. Everyone and their mother knows social media. You gotta be there. And we modify our businesses to play with the trend. If you're an ordinary entrepreneur, the class entrepreneur behaves a little differently. They pick the perfect seat. Even in an existing business, you can still find the perfect seat within it. And it's an overlap of three circles. Picture in your mind the Olympic symbols. You know, the big circles. The first symbol or the first circle in the perfect seed for a colossal farmer is what's called the uniqueness. What makes this entrepreneur unique? Typically a blend of two. Their passion, what they love to do, and their idiosyncrasies, what makes them unique. A lot of people don't understand what passion is, by the way. A passion is defined by something that we love so much that it builds energy throughout the day to the point where when you're going to bed, you may be physically exhausted, but your mind is aflutter. That's when you're doing your passion. And idiosyncrasy is the stuff that your friends made fun of in high school. It makes you stand out and you exploit it. Oscar Wilde. I'm not a historian buff, so I thought Oscar Wilde was a racehorse. I'm more of a history buffoon. Ends up, Oscar Wilde wrote a thing called Dorian Gray, a very famous novel. Oscar Wilde says, be yourself, everyone else is already taken. That's uniqueness. But uniqueness alone doesn't sell necessarily to customers. Customers may not want what you have to offer. So the second element of the perfect colossal seed for an entrepreneur is customer demand, repeatable customer demand. Customers buy from you one time, maybe you persuade them. But if they buy from you multiple times, they're showing you through their actions, their appreciation and love for you. So the overlap of those two things are critical. Now, this is where Oscar Wilde went awry. I don't know if you know this, but Oscar Wilde ended up in jail and destitute when he passed away because his real passion was exposing himself. Not much customer demand for that. So there's an example of no customer demand, but a passion. They must overlap this and I now have consulted with many companies, investigated many companies. That's why I write for the Wall Street Journal. That's why I write my books. I love what you guys do. I love understanding what makes, as I investigated businesses, most struggling businesses that live check to check month to month, love what they do. They have customers buying it. But they forget the third element, where all these circles must overlap. And it's scalability. It's actually systemization, the ability to systematize every element of your business. And a business that can really grow does this. It lands a customer, converts that customer into a paying customer, means you collects revenue from them. It delivers the product or service and has them touting how good you are, getting you reviews or future customers, all while you sleep. And if you're not doing that while you're sleeping, you don't have a purely systemized business. Going back to Oscar Wilde, he kind of had a scalable business because the book he wrote kept on selling while he was in jail. That's a little scalable part. Colossal entrepreneurs have the seed. So of course, the question is, where's your intersection of those three things? Thank you very much.
