Inversion as a Key to Identifying Customers, Markets, Solutions, and a Happy Life
How looking at a problem from the opposite perspective can help you find much better solutions to almost everything. The question is, why doesn’t everyone actually use this method?
In this article, we will demonstrate how we can identify the market, customers, or a better life simply by looking at things from the opposite perspective.
I have spent years studying behavioral sciences, mental models, and similar concepts. I have studied hundreds of them, and inversion is one that has influenced and continues to influence my life.
It is one of my secrets on how I view things, which I am now revealing to you.
At the time of writing this article, one of my main focuses is working as a product consultant/architect. Essentially, I am involved in creating propositions for startups around the world.
The challenge I always have to overcome is understanding a different product in a short time and being able to propose something that will then be built over months. The biggest change and success in my work came the day I started looking at propositions from the opposite perspective—I started using inversion.
So instead of focusing on what all the elements a startup must include and fulfill to be successfully built, I began asking questions about what are all the areas and risks we need to address to ensure this product does not fail.
For the success of the product, there are product managers who focus on building the startup on a daily basis.
It seems like a small change, but the way of working and the results are extremely different. Yet it is so simple, and no one does it.
I have always wondered why people, including myself, and generally startup founders, tend to complicate things. I have identified two main reasons:
More complex things simply look better
They do not have the right tools to solve the given problem
For many years, I have had a passion for behavioral economics and studying patterns of human behavior, but my main task is to help founders significantly increase their chances of success in building a digital product or company.
I emphasize the phrase “increase the chance of success” because if someone tells you that their methodology or knowledge will make your project successful, run away.
From a practical perspective, I struggled for a long time to connect insights from behavioral sciences with building digital products. Most people and books still use these insights only to change sentences, adjust buttons, or tweak design elements.
I wanted to use them for a complete transformation of customer journeys or customer experiences and to change the way I view things through them.
Don’t get me wrong, I use these approaches constantly, but it wasn’t enough for me. For instance, I always wanted to apply insights like Charlie Munger’s 25 Cognitive Biases or Mental Models to building digital products and companies.
I think I’ve started to succeed in this to some extent, and that is precisely what this article is about. It’s about one VERY POWERFUL insight from behavioral sciences called Inversion.
In this article, we will show how to use inversion to identify who your customer is and, based on that, calculate your market.
So, let’s take a brief look at what Inversion is, how to calculate TAM (Total Addressable Market), and how you can link these concepts or use them in general to increase your chances of success.
Here’s what you can look forward to:
What is Inversion?
Inversion in Everyday Life
How to Easily Utilize Inversion in Professional Life
TAM, SAM, SOM
TAM (Total Addressable Market)
SAM (Serviceable Available Market)
SOM (Serviceable Obtainable Market)
Inversion as a Tool for Estimating Market Potential
Story 1 – Famous People and Treatment Centers
Story 2 – When Reality Meets the Paper in Your Room
Bonus Advice – What to Do if the Client Proposes a Bad Solution
The Client Has a Closed Mind and Is Too Confident in Their Idea
The Client Has an Open Mind and Is Partially Right
The Client Is Open but Completely Wrong
Story 3 – When Enthusiasm for the Product Blinds You
Final Words
What is Inversion?
The first time I encountered inversion was when one of my role models, Charlie Munger, former vice president of Berkshire Hathaway and once Warren Buffett’s business partner, spoke about it. Sadly, he is no longer with us.
He had a famous quote on this topic:
“All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there.”
This sparked my interest in using inversion.
Charlie was inspired by the German mathematician Jacobi, whose mantra was “invert, always invert,” emphasizing solving problems by working backward.
You might have first encountered inversion as a child when your parents bought you puzzles.
Do you remember this puzzle?
The trick you learned later was to start from the other side, tracing your finger along the line from the end. It was one of those moments when I felt proud of my solution. Perhaps it even sparked my interest in cheating on tests. Oops.
But let’s get back to the topic.
Later, I saw that this technique was used by Elon Musk and other notable figures, and even Alex Hormozi talked about it in one of his videos.
Later, I saw that this technique was used by Elon Musk and other notable figures, and even Alex Hormozi talked about it in one of his videos.
This motivated me to find a way to integrate this insight into my thinking when tackling challenges for startups.
Inversion is a valuable mental model. Instead of tackling difficult problems in just one way, it encourages thinking both forward and backward. Munger emphasizes that some problems can only be solved through inversion.
For example, when improving innovations, forward thinking promotes innovation, while inversion helps identify actions that could hinder innovation, allowing you to avoid them.
Inversion in Everyday Life
Let’s look at some real-life examples. Considering what leads to an unhappy life, rather than thinking about what leads to a quality life, offers different perspectives.
Or, instead of searching for solutions on how to ensure my marriage lasts, it is simpler to ask what all the reasons are that could ensure my marriage does not last.
The same applies to business. Someone might ask what needs to be done for their company to succeed or for customers to keep buying their product. Instead, try asking what are all the reasons that could threaten my company or cause customers to stop buying my product.
For example: Not regularly contacting and asking if everything is okay, ignoring their needs or potential additional feature requests they want to see, ignoring them, or making them wait for a response – and then doing the exact opposite!
Why?
By doing so, we leverage our innate ability to identify problems, and after finding every possible problem, we can imagine every conceivable threat, which from an evolutionary perspective, we were designed to seek out. We then reverse this and find appropriate solutions to these threats.
People, especially founders, usually subconsciously reject such mental exercises of looking for all possible threats because they fear finding something that could “kill” their dream – the dream of creating a company.
This is why consultants, advisors, or therapists are important in our professional and private lives.
We all suffer from this; despite my deep knowledge in this area, I am no exception. Therefore, even though I consider myself quite knowledgeable in this field, I use others to validate my own ideas, which I otherwise implement in my professional life.
This phenomenon is partly known as the Solomon Paradox, for those who want to read more about it.
For most people, avoiding stupidity is more effective than seeking brilliance. Forward thinking adds complexity, while inversion simplifies by removing negative elements, thereby reducing the risk of harm.
“It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.”
- Charlie Munger
In practice, embracing inversion requires overcoming the natural tendency to focus only on desirable outcomes. Many of today’s or even past geniuses automatically use inversion to gain a comprehensive understanding of problems by considering different perspectives.
How to Easily Utilize Inversion in Professional Life
At Amazon, they call it “working backward” and begin the process with a mock press release.
The “working backward” technique is a strategy where product development starts with the customer in mind. Instead of starting with a product idea and trying to sell it to customers, this approach begins with identifying a customer need or problem. Then Amazon works backward to create a product that addresses this problem. The process often starts by writing a press release and a FAQ that describe the benefits and features of the finished product, ensuring that the development team focuses on the customer experience from the beginning.
Instead of presenting benefits in a press release format, you can describe them through a customer letter from the perspective of a hypothetical person with clearly defined user or customer profiles. It is a fictional simulation of a letter that would subsequently be sent to the CEO by a very satisfied and impressed customer.
In the letter, the customer explains why they are so happy and grateful for the new product or redesign. The customer describes how their life has changed or improved. The letter also includes an imagined congratulatory response from the CEO of the product team, explaining how it has helped the company.
Quick Tip: It’s a simple, effective strategy – avoiding stupidity is easier than striving for genius.
In the second part of this section, we will also look at examples from my personal experiences and their connection with identifying or addressing the market in different startups.
During one session with a startup, I witnessed the collapse of a dream right before my eyes. It wasn’t pleasant, and it wasn’t the first or last time. But that’s life in the startup world.
Identifying your market consists of three stages, and we will illustrate each with a real-life story that happened to me.
TAM, SAM, SOM
TAM: Total Addressable Market
SAM: Serviceable Available Market
SOM: Serviceable Obtainable Market
Here is a brief overview of the basic differences:
Almost everyone uses only TAM to create a “wow” effect and show investors that they are entering a sufficiently large market with growth potential, rather than a declining area or one without money.
However, from a practical perspective, or in terms of calculating into a business model or estimating valuation, it is not entirely useful.
Here is a brief description of all three along with my comments, which are oriented towards real situations that I have encountered and how I quickly addressed them using inversion.
When I work on similar things, my investor perspective always conflicts with my product perspective, as I used to work in finance and still serve as a Process Manager in a hedge fund, while my daily work involves product management.
These two perspectives are sometimes different, so it may happen that I jump between them, but I believe that this gives me a unique view on things.
TAM (Total Addressable Market – Celkový Adresovateľný Trh)
TAM represents the maximum potential of your market, essentially the maximum revenue a company can generate. These figures are usually easy to find from public sources or can be calculated using simple methods.
Often, this calculation is done by taking all the main players in the market, adding up their market value, and estimating what percentage of the market share you can capture. Again, it’s a bit of guesswork, but better than having nothing, and investors like it.
The downside of this estimate is that the numbers are always exaggerated, and they give founders the impression that anyone can carve out a piece of this big pie. Entrepreneurs who have succeeded in one area and now feel they can replicate it elsewhere are the most affected by this.
One of my friends, a successful entrepreneur, came to me with an idea. He said that e-commerce is a huge market, crowded with online shops, and he found a great niche – a solution that helps compensate for the costs of unclaimed cash-on-delivery goods.
If a customer doesn’t pick up the goods, the online shop has to pay the shipping costs, which can be very problematic with low margins. My friend wanted to be an intermediary that would hold the money, and if the customer didn’t pick up the goods, the money would go to the shop. The idea itself is not bad and even solves a real problem.
He also said he did research with small online shops, and they confirmed they would be interested in such a service. Often, people do market research, find that there is interest in their product, and consider it a green light to proceed.
Interest can be an indicator that you’ve hit on something right, but often it means nothing, especially with smaller companies. Just because someone wants something doesn’t mean anything unless you have a pre-sale contract or actual money from them for the product.
I’ve often heard people say they want something, but when you offer it to them, you find out they don’t have the money for such a solution, it’s hard for them to integrate, it’s not a priority, or they think it’s great but are just cheering you on for future sales.
Based on this, I started asking him questions like:
Why do you think others haven’t solved this problem yet?
What would your ideal solution look like and why wouldn’t online shops adopt it?
If you offered it to large companies and it worked, why wouldn’t they implement a similar solution themselves and what ensures your uniqueness?
What are the ways to implement or connect these institutions like e-commerce and delivery services?
After these questions, it became clear that a non-bank financial license might be needed. Smaller online shops wouldn’t be able or willing to integrate the product, large companies would simply steal the idea, and overall it would be an integration nightmare. Moreover, he didn’t have nearly enough money to carry out this plan.
These simple mental exercises seem like common sense, but people are so excited about their idea that they don’t do them or don’t want to do them. Similar situations happen to me more than regularly.
So, one dream was brought to reality at the level of TAM. Let’s look at SAM next.
SAM (Serviceable Available Market)
Given the limitations of your business model (such as specialization or geographical constraints), you will have difficulty serving your entire addressable market.
SAM is more specialized for the need of your product; it represents a segment of the market potential and is more suitable for revenue and audience estimation.
This is a better calculation because it at least helps founders clarify which segment they want to target initially.
What destroys many startups or companies are overly ambitious dreams. There are only a few dreamers so delusional they believe they can change the world and actually do so. The vast majority fail, and some fail hard.
Everyone else can also change the world if they strategically start dominating segment by segment. Another classic mistake is that the team chooses this segment domination as a goal, looks at the biggest competitors, and starts creating a robust and, of course, “better” solution than what’s on the market.
Another classic founder syndrome is not releasing anything that isn’t the best or perfect.
What usually happens, after burning through a lot of money and many unused features, is that the team realizes it’s better to focus on one main problem, one customer, and develop the most crucial functionalities for them. By taking these steps, you gradually dominate the entire segment.
With my friend and business partner, who is the founder of a Luxembourg hedge fund, we tried to help a company with an already functional and very successful product raise money for faster market expansion.
Why they couldn’t raise money is a topic for another blog, but what interested me was the chaos in their market estimates in their investor presentations as well as their financial model.
I can’t mention the company, but it operated in the field of electromobility, specifically software solutions for charging stations, mainly for companies or parking lot managers.
The product was very good.
However.
In their presentation, they had the usual market numbers for electromobility, the market for charging stations, and how everything was growing exponentially.
The classic startup “hockey stick” often found in the revenue section of startup financial models.
Their presentation also included phrases like: “every” company can be our customer, and because we are software, our growth has no limits.
In such situations, this meme always comes to mind:
In this case, questions in the style of inversion steered our conversation in a completely different direction.
Despite being a highly scalable and flexible software solution, what are the reasons that could significantly halt this growth? Not just your growth, but the overall market growth that would affect you.
After some thinking and ideas, one crucial point emerged – the capability and speed of building charging stations in companies and parking facilities, and the subsequent willingness to take the solution from the given company.
I believe the extremely limiting factor for growth is the specific physical hardware components that need to be built, which means not insignificant capital expenditures.
Furthermore, the phrase “any company can have our software” needed to be removed, especially the first word.
Here, it was necessary to ask questions like: In what case would a company not want or be able to accept your solution? What would limit them?
We found that these were smaller companies with a certain number of employees, companies where the percentage of employees owning electric vehicles was below a certain threshold, companies in areas with insufficient infrastructure adapted to electric vehicles, regions where people do not support electromobility, and countries without appropriate regulations.
With such simple questions, we suddenly moved from all companies to a significantly lower market that the company could penetrate. The estimates for investors were built on realistic foundations, greatly increasing credibility.
Of course, we went deeper with questions like why specifically they wouldn’t choose you, and validated all numbers or vague statements, but as I mentioned, I will definitely discuss that in another blog.
Another example of how inversion, specifically reverse statements, can help people who are not experts in a given field think more critically.
Let’s move on to the last part, which is SOM, which is important to me, but the usefulness of its calculation is questionable to me.
SOM (Serviceable Obtainable Market)
Regardless of how good your company is, it’s nearly impossible to achieve a 100% market share unless you’re the only player in the market, which is a completely different problem. This metric is important because it helps us identify the real market potential at the beginning and realistically determine how many people are likely to use our product.
It’s also useful because it keeps our focus on the local market or so-called market niche, the small gap in the market where we have a chance.
However, I find the calculation of this formula insufficient, especially for new products or startups.
The formula suggests that if you want to calculate last year’s market share, you divide last year’s revenue by last year’s SAM. But this calculation is more for established players who want to find out their market share and whether they are growing with the market.
For new startups, estimating these numbers is always amusing to read, and it’s more a mix of art, shamanism, magic, and sometimes painstaking work.
I don’t know if there are any general formulas for estimating initial customers/users. There probably are, but I would be skeptical. I’ve seen many startups/products, and the approach was always different.
However, I’d like to stay on the topic of inversion, so let’s look at three examples of how inversion directed the customer on the right path (and in one case, almost towards ending the project).
Inversion as a Tool for Estimating Market Potential
As mentioned below, estimating the market or initial potential is closer to black magic, and it would be more helpful if Harry Potter could lend us the Marauder’s Map to know exactly who our customers are and where they are located. But since we don’t have that, we have to help ourselves however we can.
Below, I have selected three personal and straightforward examples of how inversion, or the “Start at the End” strategy, helped founders better and, more importantly, much more easily define the market, save money, and avoid headaches.
The “Start at the End” strategy, described by Mat Wallaert in his book, involves creating the final state of the solution and working backward. This is another fantastic approach I used when designing a financial application for one of the largest telecom operators in the Middle East.
I will focus more on this strategy once the application is fully launched in the market.
But these strategies go hand in hand with inversion.
Story 1: Famous People and Treatment Centers
We had a session with a startup that wanted to create a site to facilitate stays in “special” treatment centers for people, mostly wealthy clientele. I say “special” because, due to NDAs, I cannot and, for safety, do not want to specify what type it is. But it is not very widespread and not essential to know.
Of course, they would first start with a site displaying these centers on the main page along with various information, and later move on to other features, such as facilitating entire stays.
One of the founders had experience with something similar because his family owned many centers for treating alcohol and drug addictions throughout California.
Later in the conversation, they mentioned that they were trying to estimate the market potential, i.e., what is the market potential of this area.
They said they were conducting various surveys, interviewing celebrities (one of the founders had very good contacts there), or trying to estimate how many people who undergo drug treatments would prefer to try this type of treatment. These are classic methods often used based on information from the internet or “experts” who do not fully understand the problem.
Overall, it cost them quite a bit of money, mainly time, and the results were unsatisfactory in terms of relevance.
This type of center is not widespread, mainly in South America and other third-world countries, and relies heavily on credibility, which means a certain type of social approval.
Therefore, we suggested they take the opposite approach and do the “ant work.” Immediately on the call, we proposed this process:
Create a list of all centers you can find. Additionally, on the site, you should monetize in the style of Airbnb, Google, and other search engines—i.e., displaying sponsored stays at the top.
Determine willingness to pay for prioritization: They said that based on this, they could determine what percentage of customers would be willing to pay for this prioritization. However, consider another approach: look at how many paid prioritizations can be on one list before it starts negatively affecting the user. For example, Google only has 2 to 3 on the first search page. You can expand by determining how many and what types of categorization you can have and the number of centers displayed on one page. This also creates exclusivity and different packages.
Analyze programs and capacities: Next, look at what programs they offer and for how many people each program is designed. These usually last 7-10 days but can also be a month. This gives you the most important data, which is the approximate capacity of each center.
Focus on high-end clientele: Your clientele should consist of either famous or wealthy people, which means they will only seek verified, well-reviewed centers with ratings of at least 4 stars, if not 5.
This way, you get the individual capacities of the centers, thus your total market potential.
However, this potential is limited, as we can then discuss how much of this market you can actually capture.
Based on this, you can set pricing offers or even just determine the extent to which this will be profitable. But that’s another topic.
Surprisingly, this method was extremely useful to them 😊.
When I mentioned earlier that estimating market potential can sometimes also be creative work, this is what I meant.
Let’s move on to an example that followed this path but was again overly confident.
Story 2: When Plans on Paper Meet Reality
With one startup, we were dealing with an application designed to make people feel safe at festivals. I’m speaking broadly again to avoid revealing too many details about their ideas and methods.
Their method of estimating market potential was somewhat better than in the previous example.
We went through lists of all festivals and selected the large ones, since they usually already have their own apps of this type, integration is challenging, or there’s a risk that they might immediately take over the idea, etc. Therefore, we focused on smaller festivals, concerts, and larger events, which represent a fairly good market.
Based on this, they estimated what percentage of this market they could capture with their solution and calculated the speed of market penetration, all analyzed on paper. They also applied various frameworks they read about online.
Which is not bad at all, and I like such proactivity.
However.
I sometimes understand how doctors feel when you start telling them what’s wrong with you based on what you read on Google or what your friend advised.
But I don’t mean this as criticism. On the contrary, I think it’s good because it forces people to think and organize their thoughts. It’s worse if you start treating yourself or fully developing a product based on this.
Another recurring issue is being satisfied with just the initial or secondary identification of market potential. For example, finding all potential customers doesn’t mean anyone will actually want their solution. But they took it that way.
People forget that behind all these numbers and words like market penetration and market, there is an individual, a person, who must approve the product and find it meaningful.
We knew their calculation wasn’t good or sufficient, but if someone has spent a lot of work on it, you can’t just tell them that. You have to guide them to realize it themselves.
We knew it was nonsense, but we had to let the client come to that conclusion on their own. So we started asking them what conditions would need to be met for their solution to be used at such festivals (or any other events). In other words, what key features are necessary to attract all potential users.
Of course, “together” we realized that people wouldn’t want to have two apps for a festival, so they would have to create an app that covers all needs. A design studio drew an app that was the best on the market and included all these features, and another development studio told them they could certainly do it within the budget.
This is another common scenario where designers create top-notch features that excite everyone, but later it turns out they are either too expensive or unfeasible.
Then comes the development studio, claiming everything can be done, and they start coding everything without thinking whether it makes sense—skipping the “Product Discovery” phase.
What happens then? Of course, not all features are delivered, leading to disputes and increased costs. But that’s a topic for another day. Let’s get back to it.
We asked about their budget, which was very small.
Our analysis showed that with their budget, they could validate the idea, develop the strategy, and code one user journey. This was literally about 15% of what others had advised them.
We then got into conversations about integration with other apps, where the speed of scaling (or market penetration in other terms) suddenly decreased significantly.
From further similar questions, it became clear that they would target festivals with their own apps and not white-label solutions. Suddenly, the market estimate and its understanding drastically changed and took on a completely different shape.
But that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? 😊
Bonus Advice – What to Do if a Client Proposes a Bad Solution
A piece of advice that’s important to remember is that if you’re convinced the client’s approach is wrong or they’re talking nonsense and they’ve spent a lot of time on it, and you want to bring them to your side:
Don’t directly tell the client they’re wrong. Of course, the client must realize they’re wrong, but if you tell them directly, they might get offended, or their brain might shut down because you indirectly attack their ego or undermine all the work they’ve put into it, and thus their self-worth. I’ve often heard clients cancel cooperation with an agency because “they didn’t listen” to their ideas.
I also struggle with this because I’m a very straightforward person who goes to the point, and I’ve offended people like this many times.
So, I know what I’m talking about. How should you approach it?
Here are three basic methods I use.
1. The Client Has a Closed Mind and Is Overly Confident in Their Idea
If someone is closed-minded, has a big ego, or is too confident in their idea, I always take their idea, draft a brief analysis explaining why I think it won’t work, and simultaneously execute a method we could use instead.
Then I say something like, “Based on my experience in this area, which is why you brought me in to help, I would go this way, and here are the reasons. But look, you are the one who knows your business best and makes the decisions, so we can go your way.
It just wouldn’t let me sleep if I didn’t show you an alternative path we could take.” This approach shows respect, maintains your expertise, puts the decision-making power in their hands, and shows trust in their abilities.
There have been instances where the client preferred their ideas, but when it turned out badly, they never blamed us, and our relationships remained good. This allowed us to solve the problems together.
2. The Client Has an Open Mind and Is Partially Right
If the person is open-minded and partially right, I start by agreeing with the client. I praise their idea and highlight specific parts that are good.
I point out those that may have shortcomings and explain why I think they’re not ideal. Then I suggest something like, “This is a great idea, but what if we tried a slightly different approach? We can work it out together and see if we come up with something even better.”
This way, I’m not judging the client for their previous decisions but rather showing credibility and activating the “reason-respecting tendency” bias, which says that if people know the reasons for certain decisions, they are much more likely to make them. At the same time, you encourage collaboration with the phrase “work it out together and see if we come up with something even better.”
Suddenly, you’re on the same team, on the same boat, fighting for the same thing.
3. The Client Is Open but Completely Wrong
If the person is open-minded but completely wrong, you can say something like, “I understand what you’re trying to say and where you’re coming from, but based on our past experiences, we’ve seen that a similar startup that went down this path didn’t fare well. We had a client who…”
The key words here are “similar startup” or “we had a client,” even if you didn’t actually have such a client, but you know the problem from experience. People don’t like being lectured or told how to do things.
But if you wrap the advice in a story about a client, this way you don’t seem like the one giving advice but rather sharing relevant experiences, giving them the chance to learn from others’ mistakes.
After all, they don’t want to be as foolish as those others, do they?
The last story happened many years ago at the beginning of my career, but I will probably never forget it. It was the first time I saw a person’s dream, which they had worked on for months and had genuinely good intentions, begin to crumble right before their eyes.
And we managed to bring it down in less than 5 minutes.
Story 3: When Enthusiasm for a Product Blinds You
I write all these stories with great humility because I’ve experienced them myself and still fall victim to these tendencies. Whenever I create or design something new for myself, I don’t do deep market analysis or ask these questions because my brain thinks that if I can do it for others, I already know it. So, these articles are not only for you to perhaps take something from them and avoid certain pitfalls but also for myself, to force me to think about these things and engrain them deeper into my brain.
Let’s move on to this short story.
Once, a person came to us who wanted to validate a business plan, product, and subsequently obtain funding to enter the market and scale.
His product was super interesting: an AR (augmented reality) application where 5th-grade students played a game while solving math problems from the syllabus. The idea was that users had various boards and characters, and to move forward, they had to complete different challenges (problems) that reflected the curriculum the students needed to learn.
It was a really cool idea. The product was already in a functional state, of course in the first iterative versions, something like a better MVP.
After the initial conversation, we identified the first red flag: scalability. We realized that students wouldn’t buy it themselves at home, as it’s a social game. To be attractive to underfunded elementary schools, it must be closely linked to their curriculum and adapt to their development.
Every grade is different, and another thing students don’t want is to advance to a higher grade only to play something similar again. It was clear that a high level of gamification needed to be implemented. As a gamer, I proposed two possible ways (the names are not precise gaming terms):
Story-based Cooperation – Create long and varied maps where a few players progress together towards a goal, and it has a storyline. For example, like in single-player games or in the ultimate version, like D&D (only nerds will understand).
Social Game – Players keep rotating, but the scenarios are always different. For example, like Monopoly. However, there’s a small chance that students would want to open it regularly, as they more or less know what to expect.
Though the product had many problems, we hit a crucial one.
While reviewing his business plan proposal, I noticed discrepancies in the numbers. So, I asked where he got these numbers and especially the customer base. He said he made his own estimates of how many people would need it to make sense.
At that moment, we immediately knew that every number there was irrelevant. Suddenly, my much more experienced colleague took out paper and pencil and suggested we estimate the market together and look at it from the opposite side.
I swear it looked like an interview at McKinsey.
He wrote down how many elementary schools there are in Slovakia, how many students attend these schools, how many would realistically implement these solutions, and how quickly. Even in the most optimistic scenarios, these numbers were really small, and scalability, from the perspective of the game’s architecture or even the technology, was very problematic.
At that moment, we all fell silent. He leaned back in his chair and after about 15 seconds of silence asked a question I will never forget:
“So, should I shut it all down?”
In his eyes, I saw the sadness and despair due to the time he had sacrificed and the crumbling of dreams and plans he had for it.
We told him that he was doing a great thing for children, and he didn’t have to shut it down, but it would probably never bring him the big money or meet the expectations he had.
Then we suggested that going through VC (venture capital) funds might not work, but there are many other ways to get funding.
Angel Investors
Grants
Accelerators
And this could have been avoided right from the start.
If the way I approach things resonates — or if your product, idea, or strategy feels even slightly “off” — I might be able to help.
Let’s have a quick 20-minute call to find clarity together:
Final Words
Building startups and trying to figure out numbers, solutions, or strategies can sometimes feel like dealing with black magic. Not only because of the complexity involved but also because of the uncertain variables you have to work with.
Inversion, as well as estimating your initial potential, can both save and destroy your idea and dream. Both are very important aspects, but when combined, they can provide answers to questions you previously couldn’t answer.
I hope you’ve taken something valuable from this article, or at least I’ve helped you think about things from a slightly different perspective.
Thank you to everyone who read this to the end.
Mischief managed.
See you in the next article.
- Peter