Curiosity didn't kill the cat.
One-dimensional thinking did.
A book about asking better questions, challenging assumptions and finding the ideas hiding in plain sight.
The book
The Pie Gets Bigger.
Complementors over competitors.
Most businesses are taught to fight for a slice. This book makes the case for making the pie bigger instead: finding the businesses that make yours more valuable, and building with them rather than against them.
It's short, practical and written for small business owners, not boardrooms.
Why I wrote it
It's not a theory. It's what I believe.
Complementors are not a nice idea I came up with. Big businesses have worked this way for decades. Partnerships, ecosystems, shared customers, shared audiences. They just don't talk about it, unless they're promoting the result.
Small businesses rarely get told any of this. We get told to watch the competition, protect our patch and grind harder than everyone else.
So I wrote down the thing I believe most deeply about business: the pie gets bigger.
New ways of working
Hustle harder is not a strategy.
The old playbook says business is a zero-sum game. Someone wins, someone loses, and the way through is to out-compete everyone around you.
But growth doesn't always come from fighting for a bigger slice of the same pie.
Sometimes the smarter move is to build alongside people who bring something different to the table.
What changes
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You don't have to build everything yourself.
Not every capability needs to live inside your business. Sometimes the fastest, smartest way forward is to work with someone who already does that thing brilliantly. You bring your strengths, they bring theirs, and together you create something stronger than either of you would have built alone.
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Different beats better.
You don't always need to be better than the business next door. You can be different. Different offer. Different audience. Different experience. Different strengths. When you stop trying to win the same race, you create more room to build something that actually fits you.
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Shared customers aren't stolen customers.
A customer buying from someone else doesn't automatically mean you've lost. They can buy from both of you. In fact, the right businesses can make each other more valuable by giving customers a better overall experience, more choice and more reasons to stay engaged in the category.
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Collaboration creates leverage.
The right partnership can help you do more without having to build everything from scratch. You can share audiences, capability, ideas, distribution, credibility and opportunity. That's leverage: getting further because you're combining strengths, not just adding more effort.
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The pie isn't fixed.
Business isn't always about taking market share from someone else. Create more value, grow the category and give more people a reason to buy, and the opportunity gets bigger for everyone.
The podcast
Not Here to Milk Ducks.
The best lessons usually come from people who have already done the thing. Other industries, documented case studies, and the founders with the scar tissue to show for it.
I'm bringing those stories to your ears very soon. Because after all, we're not here to milk ducks.
Stop fighting for a slice. Make the pie bigger.
Get the book, or build alongside other founders inside the Milking Ducks membership.