The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed by Ash Ali & Hasan Kubba
Life is not fair. We’re all born with different talents and skills: different things that make us unique. We tend to think that everyone else is always better than us. That they always have the upper hand. But Ash Ali and Hasan Kubba shows us that we can switch our mindset, to focus not on our disadvantages, but on our unfair advantages—which we all have.
Let’s dive in, shall we?
⭐ Rating: 4.4 /5
Success, in reality, is both hard work and luck
But we often think of it as one or the other:
Hard work is when we think someone deserves their riches and wealth because they earned it: meritocracy.
Luck is when we see people reaching success because of factors outside of their control (natural talent, lucky timing, etc.) It wasn’t earned success : fatalism
Actually, luck is not always positive: you can be unlucky...
👉🏻 Oprah was raised in a poverty-stricken household, and she she became one of the riches and most influential people in the world. She made use of her unfair advantages: her childhood experiences allowed her to develop compassion and empathy which helped shaped her personality and eventual tv show.And hard work will not always trump your luck. Sometimes, no amount of hard work can bring the same amount of opportunities that luck can...
A total acceptance of meritocracy is dangerous because we can begin to believe that if someone is poor, they deserve it. This belief can actually lead us to feel unmotivated to achieve more and change our situation.
The Serenity Prayer combines these two mindsets:
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference”
So, what is an Unfair Advantage?
💡 Unfair Advantage: “a condition, asset or circumstance that puts you in a favorable business position.”
Some examples of unfair advantages are:
Being tall in basketball
Having a connection at the company you’re applying for
Being wealthy before starting a business
The MILES Framework
Instead of having a victim mindset of focusing on what you don’t have, focus on the unfair advantages you do have, so that you can leverage them to achieve your goals.
Your unfair advantages can take on multiple forms: it can be your life experiences, your hobbies, where you live, etc. Even some things that can seem like a disadvantage can be reframed as an unfair advantage.
For example, you could have a condition that makes typing on keyboard painful and difficult. You can use your experiences to create a keyboard that caters to people who have the same condition as you do. In this way, you were able to turn, what you may have formerly thought as a disadvantage, into a business proposition.
The 5 Categories of Unfair Advantages : MILES
Money
Wealth: cash and assets
It can include wealth you’ve accumulated yourself, familial wealth, or funding.
Intelligence & Insight
“Book smarts,” “street smarts,” social and emotional intelligence, and creativity
The road to success will not consist of multiple-choice questions you often find in exams. You need all aspects of intelligence and insight to solve problems and find solutions.
Location & Luck
Being at the right place at the right time
Your location plays a big role in the way move around society: making friends, having access, etc.
Note that “location” doesn’t have to be a physical place, it can refer to your environment (which includes online)
Luck and timing is important. You don’t want to be too early or too late
Seize chances, turn bad luck into learning opportunities, take more action, and trust your intuition
Education & Expertise
Formal schooling and informal learning/ gained knowledge
Don’t disregard your informal learning — information and skills you’ve picked up from talking to others, consuming news and other information, and working jobs that may or may not be relevant with what you want to do
Status
Social status (network and connections), your “personal brand” (how you are perceived), your inner status (confidence and self-esteem)
Made up of 3 types of capital:
Economic (wealth)
Cultural (social class)
Social (who you know)
BUT unfair advantages can be double-edged swords...
A lot of money can lead you to feel content and complacent; less motivated for greater success
A lack of intelligence & insight can result in less overthinking and listening to experts who are smarter than you. And too much trust in your insights and your own experience can mislead you—you need to talk to others.
A good location and plenty of luck can make you dependent on being at the right place at the right time. Hence, you may not develop the skills you need to succeed when luck is not on your side.
A lack of status (being an outsider) makes you to stand out and be memorable.
The Startup Quick-Start Guide
The Why
Identify why you want to start a startup. There is no right or wrong “why,” but if you’re only seeking wealth and recognition, you won’t be happy when you achieve it — there will always be a desire for more.
Find intrinsic motivation for fulfillment or happiness. Align your motivations for both selves:
Lower self: to live a certain lifestyle, to gain money, status, freedom, etc.
Higher self: helping others, saving lives, etc.
The Type of Startup
Lifestyle startup
They are designed to sustain a certain lifestyle (your income, work schedule, etc.)
They don’t need external investors and don’t have to be a new idea: bakeries, accounting firm, restaurants, etc.
It’s not a succeed big or fail mentality
Hyper-growth startup
Usually focused on tech production or distribution
Ex: WhatsApp, Uber, AirBnb, Amazon, etc.
Funding is crucial because a lot of hyper-growth startups lose a lot of money chasing growth at the expense of daily profits
Choosing between the two:
Hyper-growth startups are highly competitive. Consider starting a hyper-growth startup if you have strong unfair advantages.
Lifestyle startups may be better if your unfair advantages are not as developed.
The Idea
You don’t need a new completely new and great idea. In fact, most startups put a new twist on an already existing idea.
You don’t need a new completely new and great idea. In fact, most startups put a new twist on an already existing idea.
👉🏻 Spotify wasn’t a new idea. iTunes and Napster already existed before. However, Spotify utilized subscription and advertising business models.Timing is more important than ideas. Being the first in any industry may be a disadvantage because you cannot learn from previous mistakes. When you’re first, the risks are much higher.
Although ideas are still very important, know that they don’t have to be groundbreaking to succeed.
The People
Your team will help your startup journey flow much smoother. It will be much harder to tackle a startup if you are on your own.
Find co-founders
A team needs:
Creator: the visionary who wants to make their mark
Communicator: able to sell and market, as well as communicate with customers
Technician: responsible for the technical side of the startup, making sure it works (engineer, biologist, etc.)
Find someone who can complement your strengths and help you leverage your weaknesses.
Grow your network
Two ingredients to develop your network:
Authentic desire to add value to the people you meet
Status increase so people perceive more value from you
Value is not always what you can do for someone. It can be your kind and respectful personality
Get mentors
A part of the journey is to learn from others and be more coachable. Look at the people who have gone before you and find someone who would be a good fit for you: someone who is doing what you want to do.
The Business
Always start small. Take small risks. Do some test-runs and see if your idea works and if people like it.
Idea Validation Phase
Once you have an idea, validate it. Do you people want to see/ buy it?
Tweak your idea based on feedback
In this early phase you should ONLY be doing 2 things:
Building your product
Talking to your customers
Building an MVP (minimum viable product)
The keyword here is minimum: create a simplified product with only core features that solves a customer’s core needs.
Focus on creating solutions that your customer needs. It doesn’t matter if your product doesn’t look good right now.
Growth Scrapping
Directly reach out to your customers or users. Make use of social media, direct messages, emails, etc.
These early days are great for you to get your hands dirty. This is the only time in your startup career that you will be able to “do things that don’t scale” (Paul Graham).
Meeting customers face-to-face
Personally packaging every product
Personalizing messages
Fundraising
Make a startup that is investable. But remember you’re starting a company to serve a community, to make a positive impact, and to make profit.
When asking investors for funding, it’s important to have proof of your company growth OR proof that you have built a successful startup in the past.
Pitching to raise funding
When you’re pitching, communication is key.
Avoid jargon. Be concise and specific.
Don’t say: “we’re revolutionising social media”
Do say say exactly what your startup will do: “we are getting rid of the news feed”
Pitching Tips
Use your storytelling skills to make your pitch interesting
Tell investors your growth forecast and why you think that way
If your business has no traction, sell your vision, team, or other aspect of your product instead
Investors care mostly about cash and the return they will get
Show them your revenue path from $1M, $5M, even $100M revenue
Pitching Don’ts
Have nothing to show. Don’t say “we are building an app, website, product, etc.” Try to have it already built.
Create false scarcity
Not have tested your product
Complicated and lengthy presentations
Notable Quotes
“Life isn’t fair. Life is too random and arbitrary to balance out and give everyone an equal share. We don’t all have the same opportunities. We don’t all get what’s coming to us. That’s why we have to make sure we are compassionate to others and ourselves if life doesn’t always turn out quite as well as we’d hoped.”
“It's not about focusing on the negatives, it's about knowing the realities and leveraging the unfair advantages that we do have to help us live our best lives.”
“We all have creativity in us, and we can all develop our creativity ‒ it is a skill we can consciously work on.”
“Always keep in mind how others succeed and what status they may have had before they started. Don’t feel disempowered by others’ success, as there’s always more to it than meets the eye.”
“It seems that the more successful people are, the more willing they are to admit that factors other than simple hard work played into their success.”
Key Takeaways
We all have unfair advantages, it’s what sets us apart and makes us unique. But we must first name it before we can use it to its fullest potential.
The key to success is working hard and smart. Just because you are lucky in one aspect or have an unfair advantage, it does not excuse you from diligently and wisely leveraging those advantages.
Every disadvantage can be leveraged to be an unfair advantage.
Your ideas don’t have to be unique and groundbreaking. You can add a new twist to an existing idea.
Being first isn’t always best.
