Other Voices - September 2020

September 19, 2020 | Sam Rook


Share

I got interested in the concept of a Flywheel from reading Jim Collins’ book Good to Great. It lead me down a few rabbit holes into some really interesting and very deep looks at some businesses that have operated using the same flywheel concept.

 

Dan Runcie and his Trapital blog is something I never would have found on a normal day. I happened to be doing some work to understand the online payments industry and specifically the company Square and it led me to this awesome post by Dan about how Hip Hop helped Square’s CashApp grow faster than PayPal’s Venmo. You can even see Dan’s sketch of the flywheel that Square has built around CashApp.

 

I first heard about Epic Games years ago when I would play video games in my youth. It mostly faded from my memory until the explosion of Fortnite. Little did I know that Epic Games had been quietly building into this behemoth of all kinds of media built around their Unreal Engine. If you want to learn everything there is to know about Epic Games and the gaming industry then this SIX-PART series by Matthew Ball is the only thing you will ever need to read. It’s the best deep-dive I have ever read and bonus points, Epic Games became a powerhouse by doing little things at the start that just got better over time. It’s one the best flywheels in a corporation you can find.

 

Lastly, this article by Sonya Dreizler is definitely a great read on what you can do to help start the conversation about race in your workplace. It’s geared towards the financial industry but it really holds universal rules for all companies. Like the flywheel, it will take a lot of effort to start but if we are consistent with our efforts and positive with our intent, the wheel will spin for everyone in no time at all.