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MY FIRST MILLION · EXTRACTED

How to legally clone any billion-dollar business

The proven-better-new framework, the Book of Life practice, and why the best opportunity right now is the one no VC will fund.

▶43K views on YouTubePreview, 1 of 12 tactics free

With Mark Pincus

"If you pick the right body of water, you don't have to pick the right boat. But if you pick the wrong body of water, the best boat isn't going to help you." — Mark Pincus
Mark Pincus, on the episode

Sam Parr and Shaan Puri sit down with Mark Pincus, the founder of Zynga, who built one of the fastest-growing consumer internet companies in history before taking it public. The common read on Pincus is that he got lucky with Farmville and social gaming. The actual operating system underneath is sharper: a repeatable method for finding dead markets with proven money in them, remixing what already works, and stress-testing the result by hand before spending a dollar on engineering. This conversation pulls from his book Life at the Speed of Play and covers the full arc from his early bets on Napster and Facebook to the frameworks he uses today to evaluate ideas, invest in breakout consumer companies, and decide what to actually work on next.

Tactic 01

Mark Pincus, My First Million

The Proven-Better-New Framework

The play

Copy a proven product exactly, test one better idea by hand, then automate with AI.

Mark Pincus says

I talk about doing a legal copy of a proven product, onboarding and all, assuming the incumbent already figured out what users want. Then you ask whether you have something 10 out of 10 users would say is better, and usually you don't, you just have something new. Test the new idea by hand in one city or slice before building any software, and if people don't like it better you don't pass go. Only after that do you consider using AI to automate it.

Try this

Copy a competitor's onboarding and pricing exactly, identify one change nearly all users would prefer, and test it by hand before building anything.

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Tactic 02

Hunt Dead Markets With Proven Money

Mark Pincus says

I talk about finding a mature market that is over, dead, or played out but has a lot of money and proven…

Episode quotes and Try this

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Tactic 03

The Book of Life

Tactic 04

Read The 60% Signal

Tactic 05

Exit Wealth Managers And Self-Manage Your Liquid Portfolio

Tactic 06

Use Envelope Math To Evaluate Deals

Tactic 07

Raise Capital Without Revealing Your Financials

Tactic 08

Hybrid AI And Human For High-Value Moments

Tactic 09

Reply To Everyone

Tactic 10

Isolate The Risky Idea In A Small Alcove

Tactic 11

Build New Product In Six-Week Sprints

Tactic 12

Use AI To Make Your Users Feel Like Experts

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MY FIRST MILLION, extracted by Podex