Investing in Professional Services. Aquaman v. Batman

https://www.adamtownsend.me/category/investor-series/iVenture Capital in Professional Services and Aquaman v. Batman

I hired a Scrabble coach many years ago. One of the worlds best players to help me improve my game. My word knowledge was excellent and of the 100,000+ words that are acceptable in North American play, I knew every one.

I was still losing games to lower rated players.

The most impactful lesson that day was “scrabble is a humbling game.” This means that you have to treat each opponent as a worthy adversary and play at your best. You can’t lower your bar to accommodate your perception of their ability.

Another lesson: “bluster doesn’t win games. Good play wins games”

Talking smack and having swagger won’t win games, it antagonizes your opponent to play at their very best. Rigid adherence to strategy, pattern recognition and a comprehension of the ‘total’ game wins or will significantly increase your likelihood of winning.

Professional service companies are about client acquisition, retention, service and profitability.

In Scrabble and in Chess we use simulators to evaluate, examine alternatives, diagnose likely outcomes and assign equity values to a position. It is a shame we don’t have such precision in the construction of company strategy. 

Blueprinting of a premium product and a profitable company in professional services requires meticulous detail given to the middle & back end.

Just like in Scrabble and in Chess, there is a much larger selection of possible moves in the early part of a business.

When you’ve made your way into the middle and end game the choices become more limited and the consequences of poor play more immediate.

In professional service architecture, start with the middle and end game. This is where things can go way wrong and to work thru that early will permit the company to scale. There is a sequence to building a new entrant into a mature market and most crucial is synthesizing the middle and back end, where all the processes, yours, the clients and other vendors all commingle: The ‘secret sauce’.

Towards the tail end of this build out, you can snap on an enhanced user experience/front end.

The greatest risk is building the entrance to the mousetrap and manufacturing the ‘catch or kill’ later. You just don’t get to trial and error when introducing a new company into a mature industry.

I have been giving this a lot of thought lately: Aquaman is a crappy superhero.

I know he’s nostalgic and there’s a sentimental quality that is offended by the brutal truth, but it is what it is. His superpowers suck. He can ride dolphins, he can talk to fish. He can swim fast.

Maybe someone peeing in the ocean is repugnant, but does it need a superhero and a school of tuna to come to our rescue?

Aesthetically, Aquaman is garbed in an outfit of bright yellow and green. He wears a belt that has a big Texas sized A with no horizontal crossbar line to make it a proper. Instead it is an ‘A’ like a capitalized upside down V. Good superheroes don’t need fancy fonts.

Sometime around the 70s they gave Aquaman a fancy shmancy beard to give him a mythological look, its weird. Perhaps the writers thought this would compensate for useless and impractical powers, a bark worse than his bite.

Batman is way cool. He does what he does ‘better’. He fights better, he runs better, he thinks better, his awareness is better. And, his costume has a simple color scheme.

Batman has no superpowers. He is just a superb human.

If they were to fight in the water, I am certain Aquaman might win, but I am not definite he would. 

On land, the place where most of us live, Batman would win.

Batman is cool. Aquaman isn’t