One of the most famous quotes from start-up theories is Peter Thiel’s 10x better rule. It is used as a foundation in many start-up courses and workshops. I feel it is often pushed too hard and quoted without context and can in fact discourage inventors and founders. How to really be 10x better than everybody else? That sounds very tricky. And what does even 10x better mean? Why not 9x or 12x. Of course, it is just a random choice of a number to suggest a jump in magnitude in our decimal system. There is no way to measure a 10x improvement in any rational way. Was Google ten times better than Yahoo? Not at all. In some ways it was worse in the beginning. It had no news nor entertainment content and it was very easy to game the PageRank in the beginning. It took me personally just two nights to be top in about 40 keywords when I started out with Google. What Google had was simplicity. It was in no way 10x better than other offerings at the time, just different in a way that people appreciated. Was the first Tesla 10x better than other cars. Not really. In many ways it was a lot worse, especially in quality control. But they had the correct hunch to where the market would go and that the future would be different from the past. 10x better? Not at all. So, it is very important to not take the 10x rule literally. And it is important to read the whole quote:
“As a good rule of thumb, proprietary technology must be at least 10 times better than its closest substitute in some important dimension to lead to a real monopolistic advantage.”
The key word here is monopolistic advantage. Excellent if you can get it and be the next Facebook but realistically most start-ups will achieve much more modest goals. That is fine and they can still be a valuable and interesting businesses. Does Nordic Wasabi make 10x better wasabi than anybody else? Of course not. Still, I think they are one of the most interesting Icelandic start-ups and are contributing much to the discussion on sustainability, food-safety, and the environment. What about Jarðgerðarfélagið? 10x better technology? Of course not. Still, they are doing a wonderful job and encouraging a circular economy on the local level. So, don´t let it stop you if you are not 10x better. Don´t let a silly quote stop your dream of a better world. I know some of my ideas for a startup are not 10x better than what is here before. But if I can improve the world just a little bit I will be happy.