Welcome to our monthly series where we review books that offer the best advice for those new to the world of VC and startups! Our co-founder and managing partner, John Vrionis, is book-obsessed; if you visit our offices, you’ll find plenty of reading material to take home with you.
We are a mission-driven team, and for plenty of us, this is our first foray into venture capital. We often look for advice from business experts, experienced founders, and startup operators to help us learn about building great companies. We’re eager to learn from the best and enthusiastic about passing on this knowledge to others!
This month, we’re reviewing Pattern Breakers by Mike Maples Jr. and Peter Ziebelman, published in 2024.
Breakthroughs don’t come from following the crowds — they come from breaking patterns.
In Pattern Breakers, Maples and Ziebelman highlight how breakthrough progress comes from the unreasonable — visionaries who refuse to fit the mold. Founders who challenge the status quo create ideas that defy convention and push us beyond existing habits. Pattern Breakers doesn’t offer formulas for guaranteed success. Instead, the authors call attention to a mindset that breaks free from conventional thinking and actions. We explore this mindset below.
Inflections: spotting the shift before it happens
An inflection is a catalyst for radical change — shifting how people think, feel, and act. While established leaders often see inflections as threats to stability, Maples and Ziebelman view them as a startup's greatest opportunity to shape new futures. Inflections can’t be reconciled with what came before — because they redefine what comes next.
The book offers founders an inflections stress test to truly assess their ideas:
- The new thing: What is being introduced, and what new possibilities does it unlock?
- Why it’s powerful: How significant is its impact, and who benefits from this?
- Conditions for success: What external factors must align for the inflection to reach its full potential?
Insights: finding the hidden truth that changes everything
An insight is a nonobvious truth about how to harness inflections to transform human capacities or behaviors. Maples and Ziebelman say that simply recognizing a new technology isn’t enough — it takes the right insight to unlock its full potential. The wheel, for example, existed for centuries but was only used for pottery. It wasn’t until someone had a second insight — mounting it vertically — that it revolutionized transportation.
Andy Rachleff, co-founder of Benchmark and CEO of Wealthfront adapted Howard Marks’ investment theory for entrepreneurship: he explains that for an insight to be pattern-breaking, it must be non-consensual and right. It’s a harder, more uncertain path because it requires breaking away from the crowd and accepting initial rejection. But it gives startups an edge — compete by being different, rather than being better.
Like inflections, insights should also be stress tested:
- What is the insight?
- In the future: What new thing will emerge, who does it empower, and how?
- This new thing will be enabled by: A specific list of inflections.
- The future is non-consensus because: What barriers does the status quo present to this change?
- The insight is right because: How will the inflections and insight prove the status quo wrong?
- The timing is right because: Why now?
Implementation: bringing the future to life
The implementation prototype helps validate an idea by creating a testable version that resonates with early adopters. When the right people see the right version, they’ll be desperate to use the real thing.
Maples and Ziebelman say that the prototype should answer two critical questions:
- What is the most important benefit?
- Who are the most desperate customers?
A great prototype should deliver unexpected results, not just confirm your assumptions. Since startups navigate uncharted territory, course corrections are inevitable. Surprises shouldn’t just be expected. They should be savored. Every interaction with an early customer isn’t just feedback; it’s an opportunity to uncover valuable, unforeseen insights.
Movements: turning ideas into revolutions
A movement is a group of people united by a shared belief in a different future. Transforming a potential breakthrough into reality requires rallying a movement around it. This means rewriting the rules of the game, avoiding the comparison trap, and defining a new playing field.
Maples and Ziebelman outline key elements for crafting a compelling movement story:
- Appeal to a high purpose: Inspire people with a mission greater than themselves.
- Attack the status quo: Frame the greatest strengths of existing norms as their greatest weaknesses.
- Create a hero’s narrative (and the hero isn’t you): Show how your startup helps them succeed on their own journey.
- Force a choice, not a comparison: Define a new market where your solution isn’t just a better option, but the only option.
- Find your breakthrough language: Develop a new language about your vision that shifts how people think.
Pattern Breakers isn’t just about starting a company. It’s about starting a movement. It challenges founders to think beyond competition, focus on inflections, and create new markets instead of improving old ones.
The key takeaway? The most transformative ideas don’t fit into existing patterns. They break them.
If you want to read Pattern Breakers in full, we encourage you to do so! You can check out the website to find out where the book is sold. And, make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletter to ensure you don’t miss next month’s book review and plenty of other content from our team.
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