Small Bets
note/develop🍃
The collapse of Enron showed Richard Branson how fragile enormous companies are. The 9/11 attacks almost put Virgin Atlantic, their airline, under. Virgin Group decided to build their company differently. It was "branded venture capital." Virgin isn’t one company in one sector, where a breakdown event could have a huge impact on the business. It has been designed to be 200 or 300 separate companies that have their own legs. The link between them all is the brand. A series of small independent bets, insulated from external risks outside of anyone's control.
Walt Disney's breakout moment came from his animation of Steamboat Willie. But the success of Mickey Mouse didn’t lead to business success. Steamboat Willie was a result of Disney losing the intellectual property to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Walt Disney was a creator and animator—business wasn’t his strong suit. His first studios went bankrupt. For 15 years, Disney produced expensive animations. He bled through more than 400 different cartoons. Finally, everything changed with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs—earning $8 million in 6 months. This animation transformed his studio. The company's debts were paid off and he managed to further the business. With a portfolio of hundreds of hours of footage, the 83 minutes of Snow White was what kept him from failing again. Disney did so much work it became difficult for him not to get lucky.
Rather than banking on a single brilliant idea, Scott Adams embraces a volume strategy for success. He doesn't expect to succeed at everything—in fact, he estimates only about 10% of his ventures pan out. Instead of being discouraged, he compensates by consistently testing multiple ideas each year, from books to YouTube channels to cooking shows. ==Adams has maintained this "ten ideas per year" approach for decades, recognizing his inability to predict which specific project will resonate.== The beauty lies in needing just one winner to make the entire effort worthwhile. His advice is refreshingly practical: don't get stuck on what doesn't work—keep experimenting until something clicks. Success isn't about batting a thousand; it's about stepping up to the plate often enough.