Zero To One | Understanding & Applying Levrage In Business

When I go back and look at the time when I figured I want to be involved in building companies and playing a game of business I knew that will only stay a dream if I don’t have the the understanding of how everything works, and since I had no practical experience besides the side hustles I had throughout my youth I figured it wouldn’t be dumb of me if I went to study business & entrepreneurship at the university. 

When I arrived in England, and got started with my course I used almost every free minute of my time to read something on the business. I would go to a library and would pick a ton of books and magazines and I would just read. I was buying a lot of books too and there were just some that were better than the others. One of those is the book of Peter Theil, From Zero to One.

That was the first guy that was in the same league as Warren Buffet, they have both created their own specific philosophy on how they look at businesses, and were just outcompeting the markets because they were sure in their own philosophies. 

What has really stuck with me was that by applying his principles you can basically value the business through your own perception of applying leverage by bringing that business from 1 to 2 or from 75 to 83. I realised I’m nowhere near understanding things that I could just come up with something that is a zero, and bring it to one.

And therefore I have started looking at businesses as neverending canvases of potential improvement. Everything could always be a bit better and that is how you keep on growing, and being an ever improving business is a great strength, and leverage because the people who work together want to know that something is happening and they are contributing. That feeds the energy needed for growth, and adds to the overall belif, and ambition.

I have worked with companies who have that growing energy around them and you can see the clear objective and commitment but I have also worked with companies that are just not innovating, not improving on the important areas, and you can just feel the doubt everywhere.
It is a lot easier to work with people who actually want to grow something, and not just because they should. 

But besided of looking at the businesses from the eyes of potential growth I have also started noticing a clear working strategy for growing any business and that is that they have to identify their strengths and use those as a leverage which leads to that in building a product, website, ads, strategy, any aspect of the business one has to think how can one think of a way to grow something not just by one point but rather than maybe 5 points more than you are now, or even more. In my experience products, digital ads and everything work better when there is a clear message of leverage points that a company has which an end user sees as a direct benefit.

Now there is a whole science on how to create a design of something for it to tell a story, or how to use words that will actually make an impact, and also use all of the right technology in the best effective way. There is always a better way of doing things, and my conclusion is one should always try and think how can he be smarter than he already is.