Acquired
Interview: Hamilton Helmer & Chenyi Shi on How to Build an AWS-Like Second Business
03 Apr 2023
7 Powers author Hamilton Helmer and his Strategy Capital colleague Chenyi Shi join us again to discuss their latest research on a topic that’s highly relevant to the recent Acquired canon: how to build a second business line. This incredibly important “transforming” question faces every great company who has achieved initial product success (as well as their investors). Do we continue solely along the established path, or do we attempt to grow new branches on the tree? Some companies grow new businesses with tremendous success — Amazon and AWS, Nintendo and video games, Nvidia and CUDA — yet many others fail miserably. For the first time Hamilton and Chenyi share their research-based playbook on how companies should approach this decision and choose wisely. Tune in!Sponsors:WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos25Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentryServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsnMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLCLink to Hamilton's 2-Axis ChartNote: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.
Full Episode
Oh, I'm sorry. Before you keep going, is this going to be a question of is this a scale economy or network economy? Yes. Oh, damn. Go for it, Jenny, because I don't know the answer.
We've stumped the experts.
Who got the truth? Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Who got the truth now? Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Sit me down. Say it straight. Another story on the way. Who got the truth?
Welcome to this special episode of Acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert. I'm David Rosenthal. And we are your hosts. Eight years ago, I pitched David on an idea for two different podcasts. One was on grading technology acquisitions that became Acquired.
The other idea was to do episodes on companies that managed to create two separate multi-billion dollar innovations. Our hypothesis is that most companies have really one big founding insight and that the rest of the company's history is just drafting on that. Well, Hamilton Helmer and Chen Yixi, friends of the show, coincidentally have been exploring literally exactly that idea.
And they've been asking questions like what percent of the profits of the biggest companies in the world came from a second business line? They have a new framework, in addition to Seven Powers, to help founders answer the transforming question. If I were to expand the scope of what my company does, how should I go about it?
And this is a particularly interesting time to do this episode with them, because I feel like a bunch of the companies we've covered recently on the show... This has been like a key part of the story, whether it's Amazon and AWS or LVMH and how all the businesses, LVMH itself, have been transformed over the years.
And even particularly, I'm thinking about Nintendo and our Nintendo series and going from like a supplier for the Yakuza to dominant video game console manufacturer.
Yep. And David, I can say you and I have already recorded this interview with Chen Yi and Hamilton and like we address exactly that. So listeners, this was a really fun one to do. And having Hamilton and Chen Yi on, it just concretizes a lot of the very abstract thinking that we sort of banter about on the show, but never quite crystallize. They crystallize it for us. Yep.
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