July 23, 2018

Flywheels and Snowballs

A “flywheel” takes time and effort to get going but then stays at the same speed with minimal input.

A “snowball” also takes time and effort to get going too, but then gets bigger and bigger over time as it gathers pace going downhill. If it goes fast enough it can keep going without anymore input, and even be hard to stop!

Paid search is a flywheel. It brings in new “buyers” (people who’ve only bought from you once), and it does so at a consistent speed.

Done right, paid search can be setup to need minimal input.

Then it’s all about “R+R=Profit” (Repeat Business plus Referrals).

With a good business model, we can convert those initial buyers into people who have a custom of buying from us (aka customers, aka repeat business).

If I create a business that generates Repeat Business and generates Referrals, then a small initial trickle of new business can snowball over time.

The ideal with paid search is to setup a flywheel that feeds into a snowball.