Hamilton Helmer

And there's statistical work on that that suggests that's generally true for, you know, very successful companies.

Yeah, there's that.

But I think also the fact that he says that this quarter is baked also sort of tells you about something about the business model in a way.

And so that persistence tells you that there are economic structures that

that create attractive outcomes and you then ask the question can you generalize about those because if you even generalize about those then you know maybe you can get to something sufficiently simple and yet comprehensive that is useful to entrepreneurs and so after

Looking at that for decades, my conclusion was that actually it is simple.

There are only seven of them.

And in fact, if you're dealing with startups these days, it's usually a smaller subset of that.

And so that to me was a fairly profound insight.

And that's what Seven Powers is.

It's just those structures that if you can get there, make you more iPod-ish and less Bomar-ish.

That's right.

Gee, I wish I had said that.

So product market fit and power are more or less orthogonal.

There are some complexities in that statement.

And I'll tell you something, Ben and David, that has occurred to Chen Yi and myself over the last year, which is a little bit different maybe than what's said in the book, which is that I used to think that it was sequential.

You get product market fit, and then you deal with power.

But my biggest education is talking to founders.

I love their intelligence, their creativity, dare I say their youth, and their deep thoughtfulness about stuff.

And what I'm finding is that the proper path is actually to be thinking about those things kind of simultaneously.