A good business is like a puzzle
Repetition, not disruption: The key to sustainable growth
Entrepreneurs often talk a lot about disruption but very little about repetition. And if you think about it, most companies aren’t born from big ideas but from solid patterns. If you can identify those patterns, you can build a sustainable business. What do I mean?
I’m talking about learning to spot the growth patterns that repeat over and over in different ventures. This mindset is what turned Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, besides making them billionaires, into two of the most successful investors in modern history. Their work has been all about identifying the patterns that drive business growth and investing in them at competitive prices.
If you're an entrepreneur, you're also an investor. As an entrepreneur, you can (and should) be guided by your passion. However, as an investor, you must think about those “boring” but reliable patterns.
And what are those patterns?
A business’s scalability depends almost exclusively on a strong sales network and a clear, concrete value proposition. If you're improving those two pieces, your business is already a puzzle: most of the pieces are already on the table. To improve it, you just need to organize them well.
Here are the rest of the pieces:
Look for underserved sectors with high fragmentation and overlooked opportunities.
Apply proven know-how, especially in sales processes and product innovation.
Replicate successful structures: agile teams, functional technologies, and a clear growth strategy.
As you can see, scaling a business is a structured discipline: spot what works, replicate it thousands of times, and build systems to sustain it. Those are the only puzzle pieces in business you should focus on. If you can understand which variables multiply the value of your project (or those growth levers), you can replicate them and make your business sustainable.