Loonshots

You know how sometimes it happens that subconsciously you have been practising a framework and then you read a Book and you realise that someone has given a name to the framework :)

This is what happened when I read Loonshots.

At Unacademy we always work towards building New Products and doing things the way they have never been done before. After reading the Book we can put the Building New Products under the p-type Loonshot framework and we can put doing things differently under the s-type Loonshot framework.

In 2015 Unacademy launched its Educator App that allowed Educators to create New Lessons in a matter of minutes rather than hours (using the tools they were previously using like Wacom Tablet, Omnidazzle and Screen Recorder). This way within a matter of 24 months thousands of Educators had created millions of videos on the Unacademy Platform. These videos at one point were being watched more than 30M times in a month on the Unacademy App.

We can say that this is an example of p-type Loonshot.

But as you read the Book you realise that the Companies that just focus on p-type Loonshots do not do as well as the Companies that focus on both p-type Loonshots and s-type Loonshots.

This made me think and realise that the best companies do not just get the p-type Loonshots right but they also get the s-type Loonshots right.

AirBnB is Iconic not just because of creating a new category by inventing their Product and Experience for Guests and Hosts but also because of scaling geographically super fast.

There is a pursuit of inventing new Products (p-type Loonshots) and then there is a pursuit of scaling via Creative Strategic Decisions (s-type Loonshots).

One of the examples mentioned in the Book talks about how American Airlines beat PanAm. There were many things that American Airlines did right but one of the most important was building a software of Travel Agents across the world that helped them book flights for their clients. And guess what Airlines was always shown on top to the Travel Agents?

In its early days Netflix partnered with DVD Player Companies and gave 1-month free Netflix Subscription to every consumer who bought a DVD Player. This helped Netflix acquire a lot of relevant users who would use Netflix and then because of amazing retention, never leave.

Types of s-type Loonshots:

• Innovative way to acquire customers

• A new Business Model

• Expanding the Product into New Categories

• Expanding the Product into New Geographies

• Building an Iconic Brand

• Changing environment (new policies, new needs etc)

• Reacting to competitor’s s-type Loonshot

“With S-type loonshots, people say, “There’s no way that could ever make money.” And then it does. Facebook didn’t invent social networks and Google didn’t invent search, just like Walmart didn’t invent selling stuff cheaply. Early investors passed on Facebook because everyone knew there was no money to be made in social networks. They passed on Google because everyone knew there was no money to be made in search. Both succeeded because of small changes in strategy no one thought would amount to much. Both succeeded because of S-type loonshots.”

Excerpt From: Bahcall, Safi. “Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries”