The Art Of War

The Art Of War has been considered the definitive text on military strategy and warfare ever since being written in ancient China around 500 BC, inspiring businesses, athletes, and of course generals to beat their opponents and competition the right way until today.

Winners know when to fight and when not to fight. Losers always fight and thus often end up losing.

Fools enter battles and then start thinking about how to win. Strategists know how they’re going to win before they even start to battle.

Have you ever thought about the fact that the most skillful fighters often avoid battles and that that’s why they’re never defeated?

Take Bobby Fischer, for instance. The most brilliant chess player of all time instantly retreated, after he won the world championship, not playing again for 20 years.

So if you’re starting a business, look at the industry first. Can you even win against your biggest competitors? And if not, is there a different niche you can fill?

Creating a soda brand to compete with Coca-Cola would certainly be an effort in vain, given that over 1 billion drinks of the brand are consumed every single day.

But maybe you can create a higher-priced, eco-friendly alternative, that targets single mums. That could make a fortune!

Only enter battles you know you can win.

Mask strength with weakness, courage with timidity and order with disorder, Sun Tzu says.

A clever army will win not with their bodies, but with their minds.

Making it seem like you’re miles away when you’re close to the enemies base with distractions, or surprise attacking in several places to splinter opposing forces are common tactics in the battlefield.

They’re based on deceit and supposed to make your enemy do what you want them to do.

In business, you can do the same. I’m always baffled to discover insanely profitable and dominating businesses, which, on the front-end, appear like they’re a mom-and-pop store.

Take Appsumo, for example. There’s not much to discover, it seems like a small daily deal site, right?

Here’s the kicker: Appsumo is an 8-figure business. If you have to count, that’s north of $10 million/year. They have over 1 million email subscribers and made $1 million in their first year (2010).

There are endless examples like this one on the web, and this humbleness and modesty are a great way to throw off competitors – even if they might be your default setting, like Noah’s, who’s the founder.

Eventually, your business will need a team. And eventually, that team will have to grow. But as companies get bigger, they get more complex. Every single human adds an infinite amount of feelings, thoughts and ideas to the…