Arguably the greatest film of all time was made by a 26 year old with no filmmaking experience. Orson Wells broke new ground with Citizen Kane, rejecting the traditional chronological narrative that was a staple in Hollywood. His secret was “sheer dumbness… I was doing things only a beginner could be ignorant enough to do.”
Intelligent naivety
It’s easy to break category norms when you don’t know they exist.
James Dyson re-invented vacuum cleaners without a background in engineering. He came up with the idea of a bagless vacuum after seeing how sawmills used cyclone force to eject sawdust, and his knowledge of furniture and interior design helped him create a successful prototype.
Will Guidara built Eleven Madison Park, the World’s Best Restaurant in 2017, by challenging the traditional notion of fine dining. For instance, removing the policy that waiters couldn’t put their hands on the table, and serving soufflés ‘incorrectly’ – in a way that enabled the server to maintain eye contact and a conversation with the person they were serving. “I found if I hired people who had worked in fine dining, they already had too many bad habits.”
Henry J Kaiser’s company built the Hoover Dam even though he knew nothing about shipbuilding. But he used his ignorance to his advantage; redesigning the assembly process using prefabricated parts to avoid hiring expert workers, and having workers use cheap fuel torches for cutting metal – unaware that heavy machinery was supposedly necessary.
Reed Hastings, with no prior experience of the film and television industry, applied the gym-model of subscription to movie rentals to create Netflix.
Jennifer Fleiss, co-founder of Rent the Runway, had no background in fashion. But she says that “being naive is one of the best secrets of first time entrepreneurship. So we were naive enough to reach out to Diane von Furstenberg and to ask her advice and her time.” The meeting gave Fleiss important pointers for shaping the business.
Swingers, the mini golf bar concept, wouldn’t exist with a healthy dose of ignorance. According to co-founder Jeremy Simmonds, “we were so naive and knew so little about the hospitality industry. We did not have a business plan, there was no spreadsheet or model. Nothing. I can’t tell you how many people who are so-called experts in this space warned us against doing all the things we did, that it couldn’t work.”
Richard Branson set up Virgin Records when he was only 20 years old. Lacking experience in the music industry – and business more broadly – he promoted music that he thought was cool, even though it was shunned by traditional labels. It was this alternative positioning that built the brand’s fame, helping it sign musicians like the Rolling Stones and the Sex Pistols.