Innovating from the Adjacent Possible: Why Big Bold Bets Don't Work

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Everything significant in society or the physical world emerges from the adjacent possible, where viable ideas are implemented and serve as stepping stones for further progress. Instead of big bold bets, the focus should be on constantly stretching the adjacent possible for viable ideas and then building up into something much larger. The proof of an idea's success lies in the existence of an ecosystem behaving as described, with value capture at every layer of the stack and the presence of a network effect. Without these elements, it's unlikely that a given ecosystem frame will work.

What is up PartnerUp?!

If you try to build a product, platform, community, or ecosystem like an engineer or architect, you will fail. Every time.

If you view it as a garden, you just might succeed.

Alex Komoroske is one of the most fascinating thinkers in business, and his wildly popular illustrated and emoji-based decks on how to build a platform ecosystem and how large companies are like slime molds have created breakthroughs for startups large and small.

We talk about whether all this abstract stuff is just a load of bull, why it has to come from the bottom up, and how to put it to use. We also dive into the problem of measurement, and why sometimes the most important stuff is what can’t be measured - and how to convince your boss of this!

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Mentioned on today’s episode:

Gardening Platforms:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1cY95dRixFho0pMIlrEFcGL_XKVy9vnE4NGOD6TQMj50/view#slide=id.ge22ac2ec66_0_94

Slime Molds: https://komoroske.com/slime-mold/

FLUX Collective: https://read.fluxcollective.org/