"Competition is for losers."

Here’s billionaire investor Peter Thiel’s playbook for building a massive company and how you can apply it to your life. (+ new referral program at the bottom 👇️ )

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Today’s Briefing

• Story: Losers Compete, Winners Create Monopolies 🧐

• Insight: True Fans Drive Category Domination 📈

• Action: Use Peter Thiel’s Facebook Method to Launch 🚀

STORY

Losers Compete, Winners Create Monopolies 🧐

The Big Idea: Billionaire Investor Peter Thiel believes “Competition is for losers” and rather than competing in a given category, you should be “the only.”

Why it Matters: Thiel's view encourages innovation that creates uncontested markets, leading to more impactful businesses and tech breakthroughs.

Peter Thiel, a prominent venture capitalist, gave a provocative lecture at Stanford in 2014 titled "Competition is for Losers." While this might initially sound like advice to seek unexplored markets, Thiel's message is actually more nuanced and ambitious.

Truly successful companies should aim to create a monopoly in their market by solving a unique problem better than anyone else, argues Thiel. This doesn't mean engaging in illegal practices, but rather striving for such high standards and innovation that your company becomes unrivaled.

Now, you might be thinking, "Isn't that monopoly shit illegal?" Well, technically, yeah. The government doesn't want you screwing customers with sky-high prices or crappy products. They'll cockblock you faster than your high school principal at prom.

But Thiel isn't talking about breaking laws. He's saying that to really make it big, you have to be the only game in town.

In the book, Zero to One, he writes:

“In the real world outside economic theory, every business is successful exactly to the extent that it does something others cannot. Monopoly is therefore not a pathology or an exception. Monopoly is the condition of every successful business.”

He goes on to say that ALL successful companies are different (“Each one earns a monopoly by solving a unique problem”) but EVERY failed company is the same (“They failed to escape competition”).

• Bing is the second most popular search engine

• Pepsi is the second most popular soda

• Subway is the second largest fast food chain

• Samsung is the second most popular smartphone

Notice how just by hearing second place, you automatically know who is in first place?

Whatever business you're in, don't just aim to be better. Be so f**king revolutionary that you make the competition look like they're trying to win a NASCAR race in a Prius with a flat tire.

Key takeaway: Don’t be first or second — be “the only.”

INSIGHT

True Fans Drive Category Domination 📈

Kevin Kelly's 1000 True Fans theory proposes that creators can thrive with a small, dedicated audience. Here’s where the two ideas merge:

1. True Fans Are Ride-or-Die: It's not about how many followers you have, it's about how many would get your logo tattooed on their ass (LEGO doesn't just have customers, they've got grown-ass adults spending their mortgage money on plastic bricks).

2. Direct Connection: Cut out the middleman and go straight for the fans (Kickstarter turned "please fund my dream" into a legitimate business model. It's like panhandling, but with stretch goals).

3. Niche Down or Ship Out: Stop trying to be everyone's cup of tea, be someone's shot of tequila (CrossFit turned working out into a cult – their followers are more devoted than a cat to an empty cardboard box).

4. Crowdfunding is the New Venture Capital: Why beg Silicon Valley bros for money when you can connect directly with your fans? (Amanda Palmer raised $1.2 million on Kickstarter, proving that your high school band could've made it if you'd just had the internet).

You're not here to be the Walmart of your industry, you're here to be the Supreme – price irrelevant and inexplicably irresistible to your 1,000 true fans.

ACTION

Use Peter Thiel’s Facebook Method to Launch 🚀

Peter Thiel's advice for Facebook’s early growth refers to the strategy of starting small with a focused target market and then gradually expanding. Here’s how you can do the same:

1. Start with a niche: Facebook initially launched exclusively for Harvard students.

2. Create a strong core product: Focus on building a product that serves your initial audience extremely well.

3. Expand gradually: Once successful in the initial market, expand to similar markets (for Facebook, this meant other universities).

4. Network effects: As the user base grows, the product becomes more valuable to each user, encouraging further growth.

5. Scale up: Only after proving the concept and refining the product, expand to broader markets.

This approach allows for rapid iteration and improvement with a smaller, more manageable user base before taking on larger markets. It also helps build a dedicated user base and strong brand loyalty early on.

Meme of the Week 🤣 

Bite-Sized Reads 📚

[Watch] Peter Thiel: "If you want to create and capture lasting value, look to build a monopoly."

[Read] Headline: “In emails to Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg outlined Meta’s millennial strategy for the decade.”

[Read] Kevin Kelly: “First, you have to create enough each year that you can earn, on average, $100 profit from each true fan.”

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Publisher: Jordan Belfort

Editors in Chief: Brock Swinson and Davis Richardson

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly for educational purposes and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.