A simple and effective framework to identify worthy pursuits and critical point of failures.
Worthy pursuits refer to 10x value propositions and critical point of failures are the 0xs inherent to the 10x proposition.
Parts of the credits of use of 10X are attributed to the book "The 10X Rules". We extend the scope of 10x in business value proposition to value proposition in general and include the important notion of 0x to make the framework more comprehensive. 0x refers to the greatest risk, or the riskest assumption of the value proposition. Actually, we are not strangers to the idea of 0x, which echoes with the MVP (Minimal Viable Product) methodologies for validating 0xs with the lowest cost possible.
In fact, the process of defining 10x0x is similar that designs a scientific investigation, that is, to identify the key research objectives (10xs) and the key research questions (0xs) and to design experiments/steps to validate key research questions one at a time so as to make the 10x research value claim scientifically sound.
The purpose of 10x0x is to provide a framework to identify and undesrtand worthy pursuits, the cirtical risks involved to evaluate whether you should work towards those pursuits.
In business analytics domain, 10x indicates the markte cap and 0s indicates the outstanding risks to be addressed. 0x can interal risk like technology edge and external risk like system risks of politics beyong our control. Startups grows by creating 10x values to markets by continuously addressing their primary risks of their vision.
10x and 0x embodies a parent-child 1:m relationship. A value proposition can have multipel 10xs that are preferably mutually orthogonal to each other.
10xs materialize the visions and 0xs deride effective actions. 10x0x encourages users to take massive effective actions to become more robust of 0xs and to make achieving 10xs increasingly more probable with largest steps possible.
Think big (identify 10x) and Act big (solving 0x)
| Perspective | 10x | 0x |
|---|---|---|
| of action | winning moves | losing moves |
| of progression | Revolution | Evolution |
| of investment | full potential | greatest risks |
| of boundaries | Upper bound | Lower bound |
Polarization: Polarizing the problem sharpen one's thinking. It will surface the critical factors that are not visible otherwise.
Choosing Vigor over Rigor: Giving away a certain degree of rigor in exchange for a large degree of vigor to make statements forceful and therefore easy to understand and remember.
Visibility: Visibility of the critical value and risks is essential especially to decentralized collaborative working groups, e.g. multi national companies, open source communities and Decentralized Autonomous Organizaiotn.
- Deciding 10xs: Identify a worthy pursuit by assessing the value of your objectives.
- Identifying 0xs: Create assumptions about critical points of failure that will prevent you from achieving the identified 10xs.
Subject to constraints:
Law 1: the Law of Coexistence - No 10x without 0x.
If we play around the first law of 10x0x, we can deduce some intesting theories, e.g., no 0x, no 10x. If an organization has not critical risks, then it is highly likely that it does not try something new, let alone the chance to acheive a 10x.
Please note that 10xs should hold a high bar or target and the 0xs should be coherently chained together to support the claim of achieving the 10xs.
Law 2: the Law of Elegance - No more than 3 10xs and all of them should be simple
We have a heuristics here: it is highly unlikely to have a proposition with over three 10xs - it is just too difficult to innovate in so many dimensions at the same time. Having more than 3 10xs is likely caused by insufficent understanding of the problem or each of proposed 10x is not really a 10x. If there is one, let's just accept that 10x0x is not perfect to frame such an anomaly. After all, we choose vigor over rigor (see Design Principle Section). The law 2 embodies the design principle of "syntactical simplicity".
Law 3: the Law of Parsimony - No more than 3 0xs and all of them should be simple
We assume that a proposition with over three 0xs is considered of unbearable risks. The law 3 represents the design principle of "ontological simplicity".
10x should focus only on how great the result would be and leave all the difficulties to 0x.
Do not be afraid of over commiting. Figure out how to live up the commitment later. even if you under perform sometimes it does not matter. You will resolve every critics with your massive success.
It is impractical to achieve 10x by winning competition and slaying dragons. Instead, think about domination and setting the pace for the market. Never play by the agreed upon norms.
Justification of 10x should be able to paraphase as a "only we can do it because ...". In real world it is very unlikely to have complete dominance in a single dimension. Often the edge of dominance come from overall dominance in a few dimension that makes up a 10x. Please note that we choose vigor over rigor, and thus it is acceptable to phrase the statement in a more forceful way.
Think 10x for 10 million people (10x for 10mn). The number 10mn is just as an example to indicate that the user base is crucial. 10x proposition for a small cult group is cool but in not the scope of 10x0x.
Never define 0xs as your todo list items. They are not! Instead, address the risks in 0xs generate many todo list from day to day operation.
0x should indicate risks that does realy damage, if not killing your project at all. Think of the facebook leak event as example. It is a 0x they fail to recognize or to address.
0x should be able to paraphrase as "if 0x does not hold, the proposition will collape because...." e.g., "if users consider facebook not trustworthy, they would stop using them and that cause downwards spiral to the userbase."
Addressing 0xs should contitutes the biggest moves towards your target (greatest gradient towards the objective function). It is not 0x enough otherwise.
10x/0x is not precisely multiplier of 10/0. Instead, they just symbolically represents and emphasize on the magnitude of the affects of your actions, that is, to make things 10 times greater or a complete failure.
Its makes the statement forceful and vigorous and thus easier to understand and apply in every day life.
“Today we preach that science is not science unless it is quantitative. We substitute correlation for casual studies, and physical equations for organic reasoning. Measurements and equations are supposed to sharpen thinking but... they more often tend to make the thinking non-casual and fuzzy. They tend to be come the object of scientific manipulation instead of auxilliary tests of crucial inference.
Equations and measurements are useful when and only when they are related to proof; but proof and disproof come first and is in fact strongest when it is convicing without any quantitative measurments.
Or to say it another way, you can catch phenomena in a logcial box or in a mathematical box. The logical box is coarse but strong. The mathematical box is fine grained by flimsy. the mathematical box is a beautiful way of wrapping up a problem, but it will not hold the phenoma unless hey have been caught in a logical box to begin with. - John R. Platt”
and the famous quote by John von Neumann
"There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking about. " -- John von Neumann
"If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter"
Minimalism demands the pursuit of simplicity in defining symbols, syntaxs and common notes of 10x0x. Simplicity has been praised as a virtue of formulation of theories as in quotes of Thomas Aquinas:
If a thing can be done adequately by means of one, it is superfluous to do it by means of several; for we observe that nature does not employ two instruments where one suffices (Aquinas, Basic Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, p. 129).
Sir Isaac Newton includes a principle of parsimony as one of his three ‘Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy’ at the beginning of Book III of Principia Mathematica (1687):
Rule I: We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.
Albert Einstein constraints the simplicity i.e., minimizing number of axioms with the the need to maximize the number of empirical facts to cover:
The grand aim of all science…is to cover the greatest possible number of empirical facts by logical deductions from the smallest possible number of hypotheses or axioms (Einstein, quoted in Nash 1963, p. 173).
That also translates to an essential pillar of 10x0x framework, that is, focusing only on polarized factors leading to massive success or utter failure. In the parlance of Einstein, if I may to paraphrase his words, that would be:
The grand aim of 10x0x is to cover the greatest possible number of critical factors leading to success or failure by logical deductions from the smallest possible number of 10xs and 0xs.
Per the definition of simplicity in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, there are two kinds of simplicities in sight:
- Syntactic simplicity, a.k.a. elegance, refers to the the number and complexity of hypotheses
- Ontological simplicity, a.k.a. Parsimony, refers to the number and complixity of things postulated. Ontological simplicity is often known as the Occam's Razor principle.
Readers may find the trace of pursuit of minimalism throughout 10x0x, not just in design of the framewoor but also in defining laws and rules governing the usage of 10x0x. We can analogize 10x as hypothesis of value creation and 0x as the postulates behind, and judge the quality of a 10x0x proposition with both elegance and parsimony standard.
With all the strethes of minimalism here, we shall not be afraid of ongoing experimentation of new ideas for 10x0x. Always bear in mind the frist design principle of "Choose vigor over rigor"
| Terms | Meaning | Read-as |
|---|---|---|
| 10x | 10 times better than state-of-the-art in some aspects | ten-x |
| 0x | fail really badly if not completely | zero-x |
| 10X- | some noteworthy value proposition that are not as innovative as 10X | ten-x-minus |
| 0X+ | some noteworthy risk factors that are not as destructive as the 0X, | zero-x-plus |
| 100x | a valua proposition with double 10x | hundred-x |
| 1000x | a value proposition with triple 10x | thousand-x |
| --0x | remove a 0x, eitheer validated or incorrectly identifed at the fist place | remove-0x |
| ++0X | add a 0x, a newly surfaced problem or missed identifying before. | add-0x |
| .. | .. | .. |
1000x = 10x10x10x
#10x0x examples in 10x0x canvas TODO: 10x0x of 10x0x
TODO: Collecting examples and feedbacks now.
1-min talk for fast introduction
10-min talk for a comprehensive overview of how to use it properly
1-day workshops for power 10x0x users
1-week to read the definitive guid of 10x0x thoroughly.
100-year for us to explore the full potential of 10x0x