#19 Zero to One: The Power of Being a Contrarian

The endless stream of advice, tools, and systems that promise to change your life but leave you exactly where you started can be tiring. You don't need more fluff. You need something real, something that works. And that's why I built Uncommon Excellence AI this isn't just another product. It's a commitment. A commitment to solving the problem every ambitious person faces. How to cut through that chaos, think clearly, and act decisively. I built this because I know what it's like to feel stuck, to feel like you're capable of more, but you don't know how to get there. All these podcasts, all these tools, everything, the audiobooks, the books, everything, is all there. But what is really the key is that whole thing of condensing it down and actually applying it to your life. And I refuse to settle for that. I wanted a tool that didn't just give me answers. It gave me clarity. A tool that didn't just tell me what to do, but it actually made me better. And so that's why I did create Uncommon Excellence AI it's built to think like a founder. It's trained on the books I've read, the lessons I've learned in the mindset I live by. So all the books I've ever read are in and trained in this AI bot. It's here to challenge you, to push you, and to make you uncomfortable in the best way possible, because that's how you grow. This isn't about the quick fixes or the shortcuts. It's about building something that lasts. Whether you're refining a business idea or breaking down a strategy or just trying to figure out your next move, this AI is your partner in the pursuit of greatness. And I'll be completely honest, I've used this a ton since I've created this. It's something that is just so invaluable that I think the world will greatly benefit. And all you guys that are listening will greatly benefit from this. And I didn't create this to be another tool that you forget about in a week. I created it because I believe in excellence. I believe in the power of asking the right questions, of thinking deeply, of acting boldly. And I believe that if you're here, you do, too. So here's the deal. If you're ready to stop settling for average, if you're ready to stop making excuses, if you're ready to build something that matters, this is for you. Uncommon Excellence AI Built to think like a founder, built to help you win, built for those who refuse to settle the Question isn't whether it works. The question is whether you're ready to use it. Now, let's get into this episode. The most contrarian thing of all is to not oppose the crowd, but to think for yourself. I just want to, like, stay on this for a couple seconds. But the most contrarian thing for you to do is to not go against the crowd. Just to go against the crowd, but to actually be able to think for yourself. If that means going with the crowd, I mean, you're think like it. Just thinking for yourself is better than being opposed to everything the crowd says. That's not being a contrarian. Because so. And also, this is the whole thing with the crowd, right? Conventional wisdom says copy what works, but a contrarian voice says, be original and create something new. And this is something that is mentioned in 0 to 1, which is the book we're going to be studying today. So this is part of the Audible series. This is book two of the Audible series. I've listened to. I've read 18 books this year. I've listened to a ton of audiobooks. I've read a decent amount just sitting down and, you know, hardcover. But one of the things is that this is 0 to 1. This is. People have said this is the best. If you've only. If you were only to read one business book, what would it be? People have said this is the book. And so I wanted to go into a deep dive or just a short dive on this so you could get as much and learn as much as possible in this short episode. Just giving an overview on the book. And I hope you go get it because it's a great book. So the whole thing is being a contrarian. The whole idea is going from 0 to 1 and 1 to n. And so. Well, actually, the whole idea is going from 0 to 1. And I'll explain all this. So. But first we gotta frame the episode. So Thiel or Teal's provocative question. So Peter Thiel, his whole thing was what? Like. His provocative question was what important truth do very people, very few people agree with you on? So let me just say that again. What important truth do very few people agree with you on? This is kind of your own secret idea or just belief, right? And this, if you can apply this to business, if you can reflect on that secret idea or belief, this is how you get your zero to one leap. And what is your zero to one leap? How in business do you go from zero to one? So I want to go through the core concepts and kind of the idea of being a contrarian in Peter Thiel's book 0 to 1 and that whole mindset. So 0 to 1 versus 1 to end progress. So Teal says that horizontal progress is 1 to n. It's scaling what already exists. Vertical progress is 0 to 1. It's creating something entirely different, entirely new. So here's an analogy I put together. If you build 100 typewriters, that's horizontal. But inventing the word processor, processor or building a computer, that is vertical and so building the. A hundred typewriters. If you build one typewriter, that's, you know, normal. But if you build a hundred of them, that's one to end and that's scaling what already exists. But vertical progress is 0 to 1, which is inventing, inventing whatever that is and kind of creating something entirely different. And so zero to one innovation is where that transformative value lies. That is where the true value of your company, your secret idea or your belief, that is where it's held that you can never find anywhere else. And that is what's going to make your business successful. But that is just the core underlying thing. So now we go into our second point, monopoly over competition. So Peter Thiel's bold claim is that competition is for losers. And what he means by this is that successful startups aim for monopolies. Not in this. And you should be aiming for monopoly, but not in this villainous sense. I don't. You know, this is. People would think Rockefeller is kind of villainous in his monopoly. The Roth Rothschilds, I think that's how you say it, Their family, all these different monopolies. But what Peter Thiel is claiming or what he's saying is that you should be 10 times better than your alternatives. So do not compete with others. You want to be 10 times better. So he, he pulled from this quote from this lady that said all happy companies are different. Every unhappy, unhappy company is the same. So what is the takeaway from this section? Right, the monopoly over competition. So it's find a niche, dominate it, and then avoid the crowded markets. The third point is the contrarian question and secrets. So what is the secret of the contrarian? What are you supposed to be thinking about? So he really emphasizes this contrarian thinking and that there are tons of secrets left to discover. There's a ton of businesses that have not been invented yet or started yet, but there are tons of secrets left to discover, meaning that there are plenty of secrets to go around that you can have one that secret idea or belief to start your company. So there's going to be a company out there that no one has started yet that you could turn into that monopoly where you don't have any competition. And so what I would encourage you guys to do is to look for those hidden truths or unmet needs that others overlook. Right? People think, oh, there's hotel brands, right? And they're just normal hotels. Well, Four Seasons came in and they looked at every single detail and they became a luxury brand, one of the world's finest. And you just look at that, um, and that's completely, you know, it just transforms your business and it's, it sets that foundation. So be that contrarian in work, in life and everything that you do to excellence and do it with excellence. And our fourth point is definite optimism and long term vision. So teal, he had this concept of definite optimization optimism. So great founders have a clear, bold plan for the future. This reminds me of Shackleton. Shackleton had, well, actually everyone that we study Disneyland or sorry, Disney, Shackleton, all these people, they all study the details. They all, they all like focus on this optimism. When Disney was about to go bankrupt, he was optimistic. He, when Shackleton was, you know, when his crew could have died at any point, he was optimistic. Everyone had, everyone that we've studied so far has an optimism that is unmatched. And I think that's one of the biggest things that you can have is to think long term and act with purpose in everything that you do. The next point is sales and distribution. So you really need, so you need to have a great product, but that's not enough. You need to have a killer distribution strategy. You need to have that. If you have a great product and you don't know and you don't have any way of distributing it or you don't have that strategy, then it's just going to fall apart. You need to focus on the customer lifetime value versus the acquisition cost. So he went in this whole thing and this is something that I actually really value and I really like. He says to focus on the customer lifetime value. What does that mean? When you acquire a customer, that customer, I, I believe I'm getting this right. But when you acquire that customer, you focus on them for their whole lifetime. So if I'm like a perfume or a makeup company and I have a customer and they buy something from me, then how long if I kept them for the rest of their time, how long on average would their lifetime value at them spending money at my company be versus the acquisition cost, which is how much does it take to acquire With a marketing budget, that customer. So is what I'm spending on acquiring new customers, will they spend all that money and more during their lifetime at my brand buying all that stuff? And so you need to double down on the one marketing channel that works. And the first person that was brought up to mind, and especially in my mind, is Estee Lauder, who is, I think the. Well, she owned the Estee Lauder perfume company. Amazing. But she created this system called Tell a Woman system. So instead of like, you know, whatever that the Tella. Whatever was Tell a Woman system was she would go over to women's houses and she would say, hey, can you try this new perfume I made? I'll put it on for you. I'll do everything. I'll do your hair, everything. She did it to excellence. And she did it so well. She focused on all the details that every woman that she met loved it. And they would tell their friends, and this is why actually is genius what she did, because women like to talk. And so she did this to, you know, her women. And then the women would go tell their friends about it and the. The other women would want to buy the perfume and makeup. And then it just kept on growing and she got into, I think hair. He's. I think it's like this basically big luxury companies or big, like, think about it like a luxury mall where it's just like a big place for all these, like Louis Vuitton, all these brands. Estee Lauder, she got in there after like a ton of women telling. Telling the manager of that place or the owner like, hey, we really like her stuff. And like, once she got it in to that place, it like sold out immediately. People were lined out the door like, so she had a really good marketing system. And I think that's one thing that you can do if you can make your product to excellence and do it well. I think people will naturally come if you're marketing it right and you're going out and you really have that drive and motivation. And so what would be real world examples and applications of these monopolies or just like companies that Peter Thiel is talking about going from zero to one? Well, the first one is Google. They're a search monopolist. So they went from zero to one by revolutionary revolutionizing search by being ten times better than their competitors. So they're better than Yahoo, better than, well, I mean anyone. They're better than Safari, better than all these people. And the thing is, it stems from continuous innovation and network effects. So they acquired YouTube and they acquired all these people and so they're constantly going and they become almost a search monopolist that like you can go to maps, go to all these different things on Google. The next one is Uber. And they created a new market. So Uber created a new market for on demand rides by solving an unmet need with new technology. So Uber didn't compete with the taxis. It actually reimagined transportation. Even with what it's. Oh man, I'm forgetting the name of it. Oh, Waymo. Yeah, even with Waymos, which is this car I, I used in Austin, Texas but it's this self driving car, no people in it, like they'll hook it up to like a Jaguar car and basically this Waymo will go around and just drive every, like drive you anywhere and no one's in the car, just you in the back seat. And you can choose your own music, you can do all this stuff. And it has a ton of cameras on it. You should go just look up what a Waymo is. But even with Uber, it's not. Competing with Uber is not defined by who's driving. When you look at it, you can still order a Waymo through the Uber app. It's still going to affect like the drivers, like when you think about it, or the companies like the Waymo company or the Uber driver that's making money. It's going to affect them, but it's not affecting Uber because they're actually solving, they're not competing in that, like they're not competing with those people. They're actually reimagining the transportation and they're creating that new market and they're kind of being above everyone else. On the next one is Tesla and SpaceX. So it's just a visionary technology company, Elon Musk. His companies are pretty like prime examples of vertical progress. So Tesla was the first mass market high performance electric car in the world. SpaceX are reusable rockets that revolutionize space flight. So reusable rockets are insane because the fact that I believe SpaceX was the first in the world to ever do this where they would send out a rocket and then the rocket would come back and they would be able to catch it. I mean that was the first of its kind ever. The next one is Facebook and its network effects. So Facebook, 0 to 1 leap was that they connected people in a way that no existing network did back in the early 2000s. Mark Zuckerberg started it just for colleges so you can know who was in your college. And then it kind of slowly grew and grew and grew until now, you know, as the Facebook today part of meta. And so all of those are real world examples. Tesla, SpaceX, Facebook, Uber, Google, all these are examples of, and they're little examples of each one. So Facebook and network effects, Tesla and SpaceX are examples of visionary tech. Uber is an example of a new market creation and Google is a search monopolist. And they're all like 10 times better of anyone else in that industry, right? There's not another Facebook, there's not another Tesla or SpaceX or Uber or Google. And if there are, these companies are far more 10 times better than all them. So what are takeaways that takeaways for you guys as listeners or for founders or innovators out there that want to innovate their company? Right. So the first thing is think contrarian. Seek your secret. So what I would challenge you guys to do is ask Teal's question, what important truth do I believe that few others do? This is that secret belief or answer that you will personally have that will help you start that company. And I would encourage you guys to uncover hidden opportunities by questioning conventional wisdom. And this is really most of the founders we study, right? Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, you know, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, all these different guys, they question conventional wisdom. I think I can't stress that enough because it's literally everyone like, so let's go with Elon, because Elon is really good in Tesla and SpaceX. One thing he does is every single requirement that the government puts on him, he questions it and says, hey, if we don't need to have this part, we'll get rid of it. And he'll literally go through the design of a car and he'll take apart every single thing and say, hey, why do we need this? Why do we need that? I don't think we need this. That. Like he'll take it away to the point where the car doesn't work and then he'll put it back in because it like he wants to find that fine balance. And that actually reminds me a lot of J.D. rockefeller. I'm probably butchering this story, but there was a certain amount of stuff that they had to have to keep, like oil and gas preserved or something like that. And so they had like 38, like they would put like 40 drops in of something. And basically the whole idea of this story is that even J.D. rockefeller had this idea to have cost control. I think Elon has that. But I also think if you question conventional wisdom, where this is a standard and you question that and try to go above that and make it better. I think just doing that. So actually a funny thing is melon hats. If you haven't heard of melon, it's amazing company. They basically came up with this whole thing where they saw a problem with hats. They were like, hats are not nice enough. Even the nice hats are not even that nice. We're going to make luxury hats. I actually have a couple. They're amazing, but they're just luxury. They're really nice hats. Probably the nicest hats in the world. And something that you can't get anywhere else. But they're just that one unmet need that people needed. Just having nice hats. I mean that's something that you can't, no one else thought of. And so that was amazing. And now we go into the next point and the next point is aim for a monopoly. So what this means is be 10 times better. And this is just a recap. These are takeaways for you. Focus on dominating a niche by being markedly better or different. Just be different and better and then be 10 times better. So don't just be better, be 10 times better and be or be different. Identify unmet needs in your domain and brainstorm innovative solutions. And this adds unique value. Just like Brad Jacobs, right? Brad Jacobs had this whole idea of being 10 times better. He focused on dominating certain niches and that's why he has his book how to make a Few Billion Dollars. And that's why we read it, right? It's amazing, amazing book. Go check out the podcast and the link to buy the book. Amazing book. How to Make a Few Billion Dollars. If you haven't listened to it, go listen to it. But Brad Jacobs is an amazing founder that really, really emphasizes this idea for aiming for a monopoly, um, and being ten times better. And then the next is plan. So how does it look to plan and distribute all this? Right. Even brilliant products need a clear go to market strategy. And the practical step for this is focus on the strongest marketing. And not just the strongest marketing, but sales channels early on. Focus on the sales channels early on and the strongest marketing or the form of marketing. And then this all goes into the long term vision and execution. So the thing is you want definite optimism. And again, this is Shackleton, right? Shackleton on the ice. What I would do is I would write down a bold 10 year plan or just a milestone. What do you want to hit for your company in the next couple years? Actually this would be a great thing for me to do. Write a bold 10 year plan or a milestone that actually I should do that. That's a great idea. Write down that bold 10 year plan of where you want to be in 10 years. Write down what your milestones are going to be and kind of to recap and to close off this episode, I want to just, I want to go through some things. So real innovation requires courage to go from zero to one. And I want to pose a question for you guys. What would it mean for you to build something truly new in your field? The thing is, it's really hard to do. But I believe that if you read this book and if you have that contrarian mindset, you will find that and you will do it. And the thing is, just pick one bold idea or secret truth you believe in and take a concrete step to explore it. And then something you should do is just research that hidden problem, sketch that unique product idea, or question an assumption at work. This is the whole thing with, you know, obsession and that founder mentality. Founder mentality is the mentality that you just go at it and you do the best job possible. And just to close off this episode is Peter Thiel's reminder. Every great business started as someone's crazy idea. You go back to Elon Musk, right? He said, I want to build a rocket ship company or a spaceship. I want to build a spaceship. So he built, he read every single book he could on spaceships and he built that company even when people said he couldn't. And I just love that quote. Every great business started as someone's crazy idea. And so if there was one thing I could in just end this episode with is to strive for excellence by daring to create the impossible. The thing is, you don't know until you try, right? You don't know if you're going to be the next Warren Buffett or the next Jeff Bezos. Until you try. If you have the fear of, you know, trying, then that will, like, that will help you fall short of your goal. And so now, before I just, in this episode, I want to say I truly believe in uncommon excellence. AI just from the beginning of this episode, that's something I've been using to strive for excellence and trying to create something new, something never been seen before, but something I truly believe in. And I know that its quality will be good a hundred percent of the time. And that, that's something that I would love to just recommend to you guys. Also, Read Wise. Read Wise is amazing for learning and retention. One of the best things I use every day, I think I'm on 280 days straight of using it. You know, when I get to a year or more, people have been using that thing, like for 3,000 or 2,000 plus days. So it's amazing, truly amazing. And just remember, strive for that excellence. Every great business started as someone's crazy idea. Go have that crazy idea and I will talk to you guys again soon.