Unfair Advantage

 hat makes one business succeed, while others around it fail? There is no one thing. But a simple question asked by famed investor, Chris Sacca, to then new founder, Alex Blumberg, in an early episode of the Startup podcast reveals a critical, yet often overlooked trait. 

I want to invest in companies that have an unfair advantage. What’s your unfair advantage?

In Sacca’s mind, without that, it’s a nonstarter. For Blumberg, his  answer was, well, him. Alex’s unfair advantage was the years of  experience producing radio for some of the biggest shows on air. He knew  how to grab attention, tell a story that was impossible to stop  listening to and build a show around it. That made him a rare commodity  with a rare skill-set in radio and an even rarer capability in the newly  emerging landscape of podcasting. That was certainly a huge differentiator and a giant asset in the  company’s quest to succeed. But, that, alone, wasn’t the entirety of his  unfair advantage. There was something else. One of the shows he’d helped produce for years was public radio and cultural juggernaut, This American Life. He’d developed not only a longstanding professional relationship with the show’s founder, Ira Glass, but also a close friendship. That gave him the ability to do something nobody else could. He launched what would become Gimlet Media‘s  first show, Startup, as a special segment on This American Life.  This effectively let him borrow This American Life’s massive audience to  give Startup endorsed exposure to a giant listenership out of the gate. That one relationship catapulted Startup immediately to the top of  the charts, opening with incredible numbers. Along with Alex and his  team’s ability to produce a fantastic show and an iTunes podcast ranking  algorithm that kept the show in a top spot giving it tremendous ongoing  exposure to new listeners, the audience exploded. This then gave Gimlet  the ability to leverage Startup’s audience to launch new shows under  the company’s moniker. Hello unfair advantage. Question is, what about you? When thinking about launching or growing a venture, building a  private practice or breathing new life into an existing endeavor, we’re  often asked to define how we can deliver a desired result in a way that  is different than anyone else. It’s an important question. But, Sacca’s call to identify your unfair  advantage takes this a step further. It’s not just about what makes you  different, or better. It is about what, if anything, makes you capable  of delivering on a deeply desired experience, outcome or result in a way  that nobody else can? On a level that yields an advantage so great that  it just might feel unfair to others? Is this mandatory for success on a scale that would make you happy?  Maybe, maybe not. For exponential growth and mega-scale, it is likely a  must. For more incremental growth, which can still generate a wonderful  living and very real impact, it will help greatly, but may not rise to  the level of a mandate. Either way, it’s something to think about as so  many of us contemplate the year to come and what we’re building or  looking to breathe new life into. So, what is YOUR unfair advantage? If you don’t have one and your  vision for growth includes mass-scale, what might you do to find or  create one? By the way, your unfair advantage might just be…you. Question is, if  that is true, how do you build around it in a way that honors the  potential limitations in your own personal bandwidth, while also  creating something that does what you want it to do in the world?