Who are you trying to reach and what do they need. This should be the mantra of a SaaS founder.
There’s this guy called Ray Dalio — a huge name. He’s running the world’s most valuable hedge fund — Bridgewater Associates — and came to fame when he shorted the market in 2008, before the crash.
Have you seen “The Big Short”? Yeah, he wasn’t in one of the 4 groups that shorted the market, but he did the same thing. And trust me, he’s been doing fine.
People asked him how did he come up with the acumen to do that.
He, in turn, wrote a google doc and published it as a PDF.
Here’s where the lesson comes for SaaS founders
A guy called Phil Caravaggio came across his PDF. He thought it was world-changing and wanted to do something about it.
No, not an article or a long review. Not a Medium post and not a tweet.
He paid a designer and a proofreader to turn this into a book. Why? So that he can gift it to Ray.
Apparently he was actively involved in this process and it took well over a year (2014 to 2015).
The book eventually made its way to Ray and he was extremely happy about it and honoured.
Where is it today? The book is called “Principles” and it’s a best-seller. But the lesson for us here is this one:
Phil gifted him his time and money. It was something honourable as he saw the value of the book and wanted to put it in the hands of others. It somehow happened that Ray Dalio wanted this.
It’s that kind of need that we talk about in business: when the consumer doesn’t know yet that he needs/wants that.
And that’s how you get close to a billionaire.
Obviously the story is way longer (including how in fact the way he “got to” Ray was Phil → Person A → Person B → Person C → Person D (connection) → Ray Dalio) but the essence is this.
Much like everything else: who are you trying to reach and what value can you bring to them?
About Ch Daniel
I’ve updated this signature in July 2020, so older mentions of the signature might not make sense.
I currently don’t write on this blog anymore. I wrote daily for 9 months on this very blog, but now I’m focused on building the CH Group.
If you want to follow my newer articles, check out the CH Group’s blog.
See everything I do here: Chdaniel.com
Illustration: Nuria Boj
