Do You Have A Linear Or A Flywheel Business?

Dear Lee,

You've been knocking over dominoes your whole career, and you never noticed there are two different games going on.

Some founders knock over a series of dominoes that grow bigger each time. One triggers the next, which is bigger, which triggers one bigger still, and eventually the chain is knocking down things you could never have pushed over yourself. Other founders knock over a domino, then have to run flat out to the next one, because there's a gap in the line and nothing happens on its own. Knock, sprint, knock, sprint, forever.

That's the difference between a flywheel business and a linear one, and most founders are running the second kind without realising it.

Alex Hormozi calls it the flywheel. A set of systems in the business that build on each other, so results keep compounding without you personally pushing every single time.

Without it, you're the one breathing life into the business every morning. Every day starts from zero. Stop breathing for a week and it stops moving.

This isn't a new idea. The Richest Man in Babylon calls it paying yourself first. Build the safety net before you spend, and you get to take advantage of opportunities instead of just surviving until the next one shows up. Same principle, different domino.

Hormozi names three small systems that start the flywheel turning on its own.

The law of reciprocity. Give someone a gift, then get a third party to publicly credit the giver for it. A restaurant might say, leave us a review and mention a friend's name, and we'll pay that friend £50. The friend becomes a promoter without you asking them to.

The unlock. Give us a review today, get 5% off right now. Hit this milestone, get the next tier free. Each one is a tiny gap-filler that turns a one-off customer into someone who keeps pushing your dominoes for you.

Word of mouth referrals drive the biggest margins in almost every market that exists. Not the ad you paid for. The recommendation nobody paid for at all.

So look at your business honestly. When a customer has a great experience with you right now, does anything happen next on its own?

Or do you have to go and make it happen yourself, every single time?

Lee