Owned Identity

In 1994, James Jebbia started Supreme, a small skateboard shop aimed at the New York skating scene. Over the next 25 years, Supreme expanded into high-quality clothes and accessories and became a staple in the streetwear community.

• As a result, when Supreme drops new collections twice a year, there are often long lines of Supreme fans, often called Supremeheads or Hypebeasts, outside Supreme stores.
• In November 2020, VF Corporation acquired Supreme in an all-cash deal for $2+ billion.

Why Supreme: Unlike the Tulips and the NFT market today, Supreme has been in the Collectibles business for over 25 years.

• Supreme isn’t in the apparel and accessories business. It is in the collectibles business. It has made collectible clothes, shoes, crowbars, bricks, bandaid, bling, caps, and skateboards, to name a few.
• It has outlived many recessions and bubbles and has steadily grown into a multi-billion dollar brand.

Supreme is valuable because the community it participates in — the streetwear community — believes so. Why else would someone pay $200+ for a brick from Supreme? https://stockx.com/supreme-clay-brick-red

From/To Analysis helps you visually and succinctly articulate where you are today and how the future will be different. Here are some examples:

When it launched, this is how Medium.com communicated the change it was trying to drive:

Another great inspiration is this early diagram on Intercom’s website.

When veteran journalist and founder of Storyful, Mark Little, started Kinzen.com, he articulated the transformation they were trying to drive on their whiteboard.

Here’s how some of the biggest technology companies looked when they started:

Here’s how billion dollar revenue companies look today!

Compare these designs to the classy user interface of the now shut TheOutline.com.

The bottomline: Owned Identity or brands are built over years by delivering on your core promise. All you need is a design that is good enough that won’t kill the launch.

• Google’s focus was its Search algorithm.
• Amazon’s focus was on faster shipping, lower pricing, and greater variety.
• Once you’ve cracked your core value proposition, the unique design can add to the experience, thereby allowing you to charge a premium.

In comparison: The Outline has overinvested in design relative to their size and earning potential and that capital could have been better deployed in experimenting with and iterating on their core editorial proposition.

• This typically happens because editorial teams tend to mix up brand, design, and content.

Footnotes:

• Here’s What Google Looked Like The First Day It Launched In 1998 | Business Insider India
• This is what Amazon’s homepage looked like when it launched in July 1995 (qz.com)
• Craigslist posts annual revenue of $1 billion: Study (cnbc.com)

It’s a strategy best suited for those committed to the long game, building their Judgment and credibility in a specific field, and those devoted to cultivating their Owned Identity, business, or initiatives as their life’s work.

In fact, they are well-positioned to run their own media operations, thanks to their education, mindfulness, and thoughtfulness. They have the content ready!

Who are we talking about?

• Professionals such as academics, researchers, reporters, policy makers, consultants, analysts, and think tank members who develop deep Judgment in their study field.
• The “Fortune 50 million” rather than the Fortune 500—sustainable Work Products earning an honest living, solving specific problems for a clearly defined customer base (Niche).
• Enthusiasts and hobbyists with a profound appreciation for their chosen subject or activity using Passion work products.
• Independent media and content creators dedicated to telling the truth using Candid Communication.
• Investors who’ve spent decades building their credibility and stand to lose from short-term, opportunistic decisions.

They tend to invest in things that don’t change. They’ve built up credibility over decades and have things to lose from taking short-term, opportunistic decisions. Eventually, they tend to become Anti-fragile. For example, Amazon believes that most of their investments are focused on three evergreen factors: lower prices, more choice, and faster shipping. They avoid the Peanut Butter Manifesto.

It is not for everyone!

• Venture Capital funded products, if not profitable, may get axed (remember Google Reader), acquired (recall Posterous, Nuzzel), or simply fall out of fashion (think Orkut).
• It also fails in organizations with extractive monopolies or businesses causing negative externalities like oil or tobacco.
• This approach is not suitable for professionals in strategic industries such as law, politics, and diplomacy.
• It isn’t suitable for those who chase what’s trending online for the sake of standing out, the focus here is on enduring value, not transient trends. Fast fashion flaunting influencers and Instagram-friendly food might get attention, but they lack long-term depth.
• Beyond these categories, Candid Communication does not work for snake oil salesmen. Their modus operandi often involves altering opinions, personality traits, accents, and behaviors to suit their audience. They cherry-pick facts, favoring only those that benefit their narrative. These individuals project grand ideas without delving into the nitty-gritty of implementation, often complicating simple matters to disguise their lack of detail. Additionally, they tend to gravitate towards industries involving large sums of money but marked by low accountability.

Footnotes:

• How Jeff Bezos’s Very First Amazon Job Listing Foreshadowed His Stepping Down as CEO | Inc.com

The artefacts you own can symbolize what you stand for.

Why this matters:

• Often the things you own can give you temporary access to other people who want to experience those objects.
• The storytelling around those objects not only communicates that you’ve the ability to buy these objects but also to appreciate their significance and value.

Examples: The display of high-end bookshelves behind you in the backdrop during video calls (Zoom).

Trust is the belief that you’ll act in a reliable and dependable way. It is earned over time through consistent behavior and actions.

Do you have built a reputation for being trusted, reliable, high-integrity, long-term thinkers in an otherwise trust-deficit ecosystem?

Given this, take clear stock of what you’ve got — Capital, Owned Network, Owned Identity, Owned Media, Labor, Judgment, etc. and see what you can build from there. You should always want to Build multiple entry and exit options. But your Lived experiences will it close and which options it might open.

Building resentment or complaining about what you’ve got is against building a life of focus and ongoing practice.

Accept what have you got and focus on what you can act on.

• Personally: Beauty, smartness, gifted ability, or lack of.
• Socially: People will behave foolishly, rudely, ungratefully, take advantage of us, and treat us unjustly.
• Situations: People won’t comply with our ethics and values.

Footnotes:

• Zero to One
• https://twitter.com/waitbutwhy/status/1571562595957489665
• Dokkodo
• Stoicism
• Good Profit, Charles Koch

Build a frame of mind that is so strong that you can build authentic expression — express your thoughts, ideas, opinions, world views, and beliefs — unapologetically without consideration of what others might think of them.

Why it matters:

• It helps with Owned Identity: Being authentic helps you differentiate yourself. No two people are alike. Everyone’s Lived experiences — context, knowledge, personality and situation is unique. By being yourself, you are differentiating. The more authentic you are, the less competition you’re going to have. It will also make your brand more real, human, and relatable.
• In a world of Artificial Intelligence generated content, being an authentic real person is Competitive Differentiation

It will also give you the superpower to fail in public and survive.

You cannot be authentic if you don’t Think and act independently. Don’t conform.

How to be authentic:

• Before expressing yourself, master the basics first.
• Curate your beliefs because beliefs define your story: who you are and what do you stand for.
• Build mental strength.
  • You should be able to focus on what needs to be done irrespective of how you feel.
  • You should be able to control your fight or flight response by proving to your physiological self that you are in a safe environment.

People have a tendency to attribute value to an individual or company based on their accumulated embodied cultural capital, which can be derived from either their personal identity (such as gender, ethnicity, color, race, caste, etc.) or the distinctive knowledge, perspectives, and abilities they acquire from their unique circumstances.

Why it matters: Recognizing the significance of this, identifying and embracing an Owned Identity that aligns with one’s embodied cultural capital can aid in developing a Niche that is more closely connected to their personal experiences.

• However, this advantage tends to favor those who already possess significant leverage, resulting in unequal opportunities.

How: To leverage this aspect effectively, investing in the art of storytelling can prove beneficial.