picture of the book

The Unfair Advantage by Ash Ali & Hasan Kubba

Rating: 5-Star

Date read:

🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences

  1. Framework that is intended to identify one or multiple potential edges that a company or a person may have, which can be exploited to help them succeed
    1. For an early startup the unfair advantage is the sum of the founders unfair advantages
  2. You already have what it takes to succeed at your job or career, and this book gives you the framework to identify it
  3. An interesting summary of what is needed to start and run a company. Either lifestyle or hyper-growth

🎨 Impressions

I like the book and the stories in it. It was a very easy read and they propose a reasonable framework to identify strong points and weaknesses for a person, group of people or early stage company.

It is interesting that the authors use this to asses investment opportunities into early stage companies. They have a cool back story that fits into the myth of the self made man. Both coming from immigrant families in the UK they have managed to make their way to financial freedom (or at least comfort) through grit and determination. They share some of the insights that got them there.

I think this book is inspiring and provides a helpful framework to identify what to focus on as a founder or single person, and where to rely on other people, or delegate.

The framework seems useful as well as their guidelines for making a startup. The fund raising stages were particularly insightful, it was good to see it on a simple number list as a potential incremental way to raise capital. Not only as different sources of capital but also as places to look for capital when you are in different states of your building journey.

I have to make the caveat though, that while this provides value it is also another tool for the business that they make (which is okay). It serves to grow their brand, which allows them to get more clients for their consulting business. And probably better or at least more opportunities to invest in. Is another wheel in the machine they are building / built.

How I Discovered It

It was a birthday gift by my friend Francesca. Super good and inspiring. I had heard about it on YouTube and some other podcasts.

Who Should Read It?

It’s an easy read. So everyone who’s into business building or early stage investing can benefit from it.

☘️ How the Book Changed Me

  • I need to do the exercise to identify how this fits for me.
  • So far, it inspired me and gave me the insight (once again) that the most important part of all of this is to take action. And the details can only be figured out once you are in the way of doing it.

✍️ My Top 3 Quotes

  • MILES: Money, intelligence and insight, location and luck, education and expertise, status.
    • All built on the rock of mindset → work and luck
  • “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.”
    • It is a quote from the serenety player that appears in the book and I really like
  • "Expect to be lucky. Self-fulfilling prophecies are real."

📒 Summary + Notes

  • Mindset
    • Life is unfair
    • Use the advantages you have to stand up from the crowd
    • Luck is involved, and you need to be in the right place to take advantage of it. Intentional work, or directed work increases your surface area for luck to happen
    • Reality-growth mindset
      • Ability to accept limits of life and knowing that these limits are malleable
      • Balance between self-awareness and self-believe
      • Four characteristics of a strong reality growth mindset:
        1. Vision
        2. Resourcefulness
        3. Constant growth and lifelong learning
        4. Grit and perseverance
  • MILES
    • Money
      • Capital you have or can easily raise
      • Marketing and sales → Monetisable skill
      • Self assessment questions
        • Do I have capital in my bank account now?
        • Do I have friends and family who might invest that money upfront?
        • Can I save that money doing my current job?
    • Intelligence and insight
      • IQ
      • Book smart
      • “Street smart”
        • Social / emotional intelligence
        • Common sense
        • Bullshit detention
      • Insight
      • Self assessment questions
        • How well do you work in teams?
        • How good are you in interpersonal relations?
        • Do you make others around you feel better about themselves?
        • Are you in touch with your own emotions?
        • Can you get a good feeling of what other people intentions are? can you often sense if somebody has had bad intentions?
    • Location and Luck
      • Right place at the right time
      • Startup clusters
      • Timing: ride the wave
      • How to get more lucky:
        1. Maximise your chance opportunities
        2. Trust your intuition and gut feeling. Especially when you’ve had some experience
        3. Expect to be lucky
        4. Turn the bad luck into good luck
        5. → Take more action
    • Education and expertise
      • Formal schooling → huge unfair advantage
        • Knowledge, network and signalling
      • Self learning
      • Self assessment questions
        • Do I have the skills to build my own company
        • Do I Know what I am an expert in?
        • What would I like to be an expert in?
    • Status
      • Social status → network + connections
      • Outer status
        • According to Pierre Bourdieu there are three types of capital
          • Economic capital
          • Social capital
          • Cultural capital
      • Inner status (self-esteem)
  • Startup help → 2 type of startups, funding breakdown, pitch advice
    • The why
    • Startup type
      • Lifestyle startups
      • Hyper-growth startups
    • The idea
      • Who not what → target
      • Scratch your own itch
    • The people
      • Co-founders
      • How to grow your network: two ingredients
        • An authentic desire to add value to people you meet
        • Increasing your Status so that people perceive more value from you
      • How to get mentors:
        • Identify who could be a mentor for you
        • Get their attention
        • Seek to add value
        • Act normal
        • Apply what your mentor advises as quickly as possible
    • The business
      • Idea validation: MVP
      • Growth scrapping
        • Focus on growth. Sales and product development. Constant talks with customers
          • Do things that don’t scale
      • Growth hacking

        • After product market-fit

        process of rapid experimentation and testing across marketing channels and product development to identify the most effective, efficient ways to grow a startup rapidly.

    • Fundraising
      • Usually follows the following sequence as the startup grows:
        1. Savings
        2. Bootstrapping
        3. The three Fs: family, friends and fools
        4. Grants and competitions
        5. Private angel investors
        6. Venture capital
        7. Private equity
        8. IPO or acquisition
      • Profile your investors:
        • Industries and business
        • Ticket size
        • Application process
        • Decision-making process
        • Location
        • Value-adding investor
      • Pitch advise:
        • What does your startup do?
        • What is the problem you’re solving?
        • How big is the market?
        • What is your traction?
        • How will you make money?
        • Who are the team?
        • Who are the competitors?
        • What is your Unfair advantage?
        • How much Money do you want to raise?
        • What will you spend that money on?