The book
Stop fighting for a slice. Make the pie bigger.
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.
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 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. 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.
Work with someone who already does that thing brilliantly. You bring your strengths, they bring theirs.
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Different beats better.
You don't need to beat the business next door. Stop running the same race and build something that fits you.
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Shared customers aren't stolen customers.
A customer can buy from both of you. The right businesses make each other more valuable.
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Collaboration creates leverage.
Share audiences, capability and credibility, and get further by combining strengths, not adding effort.
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The pie isn't fixed.
Create more value and grow the category, and the opportunity gets bigger for everyone.
What's inside
9 chapters, from mindset to method.
The pie mindset.
Zero-sum thinking, and how to tell a complementor from a competitor.
The power of collaboration.
Why collaboration wins, and where it tips into coercion or collusion.
The mindset shift.
From scarcity to abundance, and the limiting beliefs in the way.
Identifying and engaging complementors.
How to spot one, approach them and build trust.
Collaborative business models.
Co-branding, joint ventures, shared services, alliances and licensing.
Co-designing a collaborative strategy.
Preparation, communication, boundaries and a roadmap.
Growing the pie together.
Network effects, innovation and industry movements.
Avoiding pitfalls.
What goes wrong, and what to do when a partner won't change.
Shared success.
Reaping the rewards, and the ripple effect.
With case studies including Starbucks and Barnes & Noble, Red Bull and GoPro, Airbnb, Patagonia and Slack.
Delicious on their own. Even better together.
Get the book, or book me to speak about it at your event.