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Jay often talks about his vision of their reselling business being a “machine” that takes on a life of its own as long as he keeps it fed and maintained. it reminds me of the “flywheel effect” Jim Collins wrote of in his book, good to great. Many of you may be familiar with it and it may bring back haunted memories of your previous corporate life as it does me. sorry about that. hope its not redundant…Here’s an abbreviated excerpt.
“Picture a huge, heavy flywheel—a massive metal disk mounted horizontally on an axle, about 30 feet in diameter, 2 feet thick, and weighing about 5,000 pounds. Now imagine that your task is to get the flywheel rotating on the axle as fast and long as possible. Pushing with great effort, you get the flywheel to inch forward, moving almost imperceptibly at first. You keep pushing and, after two or three hours of persistent effort, you get the flywheel to complete one entire turn. You keep pushing, and the flywheel begins to move a bit faster, and with continued great effort, you move it around a second rotation. You keep pushing in a consistent direction. Three turns … four … five … six …
Then, at some point—breakthrough! The momentum of the thing kicks in, hurling the flywheel forward, turn after turn … whoosh! … its own heavy weight working for you. You’re pushing no harder than during the first rotation, but the flywheel goes faster and faster. Each turn of the flywheel builds upon work done earlier, compounding your investment of effort…
The huge heavy disk flies forward, now with almost unstoppable momentum”
