Execution, Not Selection

Someone told Seth Godin they were "waiting for a really good idea."

His response:

"A Broadway show about an obscure figure in the Revolutionary War, cast with people of color, using music nobody's heard on Broadway before? That's a terrible idea."

Except it's the most profitable Broadway show of all time.

On paper, Hamilton violated every rule of commercial viability. Historical figure most Americans can't identify. Hip-hop on Broadway. A genre mismatch. Non-traditional casting that breaks period authenticity. A three-hour runtime. Ticket prices that seemed absurd.

Terrible idea. By every reasonable analysis.

Here's what this reveals about strategy.

We think good ideas are identifiable in advance. That market research and competitive analysis and trend forecasting can separate winners from losers before execution. That if you're smart enough, you can pick correctly.

William Goldman. The screenwriter who wrote The Princess Bride, Butch Cassidy, and All the President's Men. He summarized decades of experience in three words: "Nobody knows anything."

This is The Shadow Strategy in action. We SAY we're looking for good ideas. We ACTUALLY create value through execution.

The problem isn't that bad ideas sometimes succeed. It's that "good idea" and "bad idea" are often indistinguishable before someone commits fully to execution.

Hamilton wasn't a good idea that people recognized. It was a terrible idea that Lin-Manuel Miranda executed with complete commitment. This is Walk or Optimize in action. Twenty miles every day, regardless of conditions.

You're not waiting for a good idea. You're waiting for certainty that doesn't exist.

The practice is the thing.

Go deeper: Execution Reveals