Improving Odds Rule

The ‘Equal Odds Rule’ says that the average publication of any particular scientist does not have any statistically different chance of having more of an impact than any other scientist’s average publication.

In other words your garden-variety scientist is subject to the same rules as a spinner in two-up. Each toss of the two coins has equal chance of landing heads-up and, similarly, each scientific effort has an equal chance of being ‘remembered’ or being heavily-cited as another. So any scientist wishing to enter into the hall of fame would be well placed to publish as much as they can.

This broad rule has merit but having worked with many scientists I would say that some, a very small fraction, have an active intent of wading out into ‘white space’ where innovation is more likely to be achieved, thus improving their odds of success. And others have a greater skill at recognising the accidental discovery; they have trained themselves not to ignore the unexpected results. And yet others have bigger budgets to play with which is critical to purposeful invention or discovery.

If we step over into technology entrepreneurship in start-ups, the Equal Odds Rule is almost not applicable. Most start-ups fail because of poor risk management. That is, they fail because of the inexperience of the team, which leads them to carry risks that others would recognise and avoid. This of course can extend to the choice of the original product idea.

But having said that, the required experience can only be learned by trying and failing, repeatedly. So in this odd way the ‘learning’ of the  Equal Odds Rule does apply to the start-up game; you need to doggedly keep going until you can manage all the risks.

So long as you have enough energy, by the stage of life where you can manage all the myriad of risks, your odds of success are far improved over the average punter – let’s call this the ‘Improving Odds Rule’.

The smart young entrepreneur reading this would realise that there is a short-cut and it’s called surrounding yourself with grey-hairs that already have the experience; investors, CEO’s, COO’s and board members. You have to sell them all on your energy and willingness to learn, be flexible, be not as mad as a cut snake, and be reasonable as to your expectations of the share in the upside.

So here is another start-up rule – the ‘Long Road Rule’. The successful entrepreneurs are either stupidly lucky and learn nothing from their one and only success, or they are great sales people with their ego in control and of possession of the ‘right stuff’ in the eyes of the grey-hairs looking for a young energetic person to back. Somehow I don’t think you can fabricate this ‘right stuff’ – its something that you are born with. And if you don’t have it then its the long road to grey-hairdom for you.