The MAD Rules of Business (Re)Investment.

Most people, handed a win, reach for More. It's the safe reflex, and it pays - for a while. But More and Adjacent both keep you inside the same frame. The move that builds a business is Different: and you find it by looking hard at the infrastructure, customers and distribution you already own.

M - More

Do the thing that worked, again. It's the honest answer and often the right first step. The trap is mistaking a repeatable hit for a business. The Macarena was a hit. It was never a business.

A - Adjacent

Take the same logic to a neighbouring product for the same customers. Lower risk than starting over, and it broadens the base. But adjacency rarely changes the shape of the company - it just adds another line beside the first.

D - Different

A structurally new line, built deliberately so the original feeds it and it feeds the original. Apple hardware drives Services; Services lock people back into the hardware. That loop is the difference between a company that grows and a company that compounds. The Different move almost never comes from a blank page - it comes from an asset you're already sitting on, but haven't realised what you've got. Or a failure that has caused you to get creative.

Which move are you making?

Most owners can't see their own default. The free two-minute Decision-Maker Diagnostic shows you which frame is running your decisions - and what it tends to get wrong. And when you think you've found your Different: the D-Ready Check tells you, honestly, whether you and the business are ready to make it right now.

The proof: Stargate & The Pirates

I started a video game business in my bedroom, and grew it into the largest video game developer in the country by turning the traditional developer/publisher relationship on its head. I built an 8-figure business by doing things Different.

I did it again when I walked into the major Hollywood studios - Disney, Fox, Universal and MGM amongst them - and told them to let us 'pirate' their content: the very thing they'd spent tens of millions of dollars trying to stop. They all agreed. Why? Different.

The Different move isn't a wilder idea. It's the same facts, seen from outside the frame everyone else is standing in.

Learn more about The MAD Rules of (Re)Investment in Challenge The Frame.