In the video game Katamari Damacy, you roll a ball through the world, slowly picking up objects by running over them. You can’t pick up big objects right away – you can only pick up objects smaller than you. As your pile grows, your capabilities grow.
Here’s a video of someone playing it:
When you’re starting a company by yourself, you start all alone with limited capabilities. You only have so many hours per day, and there’s a lot of skills you haven’t acquired yet. You tackle a lot of small tasks manually, doing them over and over again, until you build processes that help you conquer larger tasks.
The multi-player part comes in when you’ve built up enough revenue and processes: you can afford to hire someone.
To play the game well, you have to be able to hand off as many tasks as possible to that new hire. And so do they. This means you need to avoid manual processes and focus on building systems as fast as possible.
Every time you shed load, your ball starts small again, and the process repeats itself. This means you need to be great at figuring out what you need to scale next, learning how to do it, and building a process around it.
This isn’t even about building a business – if you’re a dissatisfied employee, this is how to get a better job. Figure out how to hand off, automate, and eliminate what you’re doing today, and find the next job tasks you want to do.
