LearnDay@Xoxzo is a monthly online seminar initiated by the Xoxzo team. We will have speakers from the team or guest speakers which will talk for 20 minutes each, on a subject of their choosing. "How to leverage on your unfair advantages": from the book "The Unfair Advantage", presented by Jules, Xoxzo Engineering XOXZO Learn Day #21 2020/07/29 ====================== We have recorded sessions of our previous LearnDay here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiV-bQprArQxKBSzaKY1vQg For updates and news on our future LearnDays, follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/xoxzocom/) or sign up for our Exchange Newsletter (https://info.xoxzo.com/en/exchange-mailing-list/)

1. How to leverage on
your unfair
advantages
From the book: The Unfair Advantage
By Ash Ali and Hasan Kubba

2. What is An unfair
advantage?
2

3. An unfair ADvantage is ...
A condition, asset or
circumstance that puts you in a
favourable business position
3

4. Some properties are...
4

5. 1.They can’t easily be copied or
bought. They are unique to YOU
❏ A unique talent
❏ Interpersonal skills
❏ Your own audience
❏ Unique Insights

6. 2. Partner up with somebody with
unfair advantages that balance out
yours

7. 3. Unfair advantages build on each
other
- They build on top of each other and have a
snowballing effect
- They don’t just add together they often multiply
together

8. THE M.I.L.E.S
Framework
8

9. - Believes that life is fluid
- Has a strong vision
- Is resourceful
- Is constantly growing and
values lifelong learning
- Has grit and perseverance
Before we dive in…. Let’s Start with
the right mindset
- Think that they are born
naturally gifted
- Black and white way of
thinking
- Failure is a disaster
9
- Yet
Fixed Growth

10. 10
Money is the capital you have, or that you can
easily raise
Money

11. Money as your unfair
advantage
❏ Practically means wealth
❏ Your financial Cushion
11

12. Euan Blair
➔ Co founded WhiteHat, tech startup
that aims to get young people into
apprenticeships
➔ Made a loss of ~400 000 pounds
12
➔ Received a capital worth 600k pounds
interest free
➔ Son of Tony blair former PM of UK
➔ Euan and his mother co-own a
townhouse in central london

13. 13
No money? No Problem!
If you currently don’t have money as an unfair
advantage you could ….
❏ Minimize living expenses
❏ Learn marketing and sales
❏ Learn to code
❏ Freelance

14. 14
Intelligence
And
Insight
Includes ‘book smarts’, social
and emotional intelligence, as
well as creativity

15. Intelligence as your unfair
advantage
❏ High IQ and being “book smart”
15

16. Patrick
and
John Collison
Big unfair advantage is
their incredible
intelligence
16

17. 17
➔ Took first computer course when he was just 8 years
old
➔ Came up with a new computer language when he was
16
➔ Enrolled in MIT
Patrick
John
➔ Finished with the highest ever score on his Leaving
Certificate
➔ Was accepted to Harvard before taking his final exams
➔ Loves studying!

18. ➔ Became millionaires from First start up
called Auctomatic
18
➔Co-founded Stripe!

19. Insight as your unfair advantage
19
❏ Being able to see below the surface of things and to
understand elements of a situation that others might not

20. Will
shu
➔ Working 100-hour weeks as a Banker in
New York, he was used to getting food
delivered to the office
20
➔ Found a lack in food delivery services
when he transferred to London
➔ He founded Deliveroo

21. 21
➔ Rode his bike around as a delivery
guy himself
➔ Gained valuable insights
➔ Able to see the possible obstacles
and difficulties from end to end

22. 22
ASK ! Study ! Repeat !
How to develop your intelligence and insight:
❏ Cultivate your curiosity
❏ Ask more questions
❏ Be more aware
❏ Do more experiments
❏ Be more emphatic
❏ Be observant

23. 23
Location
and
Luck
Being at the right place at
the right time

24. Location and luck as your unfair
advantage
24
❏ Being at the right place at the right time
❏ Doing something about it

25. Huda Kattan
➔ First social media beauty
influencer to attract private equity
25
➔ Went to LA from Oklahoma to
study Make up
➔ Started blogging everyday until
she made traction

26. ➔ Eventually moved to Dubai for her
target market
26
Huda Kattan
➔ Decided to launch her first
product (false lashes)
➔ So successful Kim kardashian
herself began wearing them

27. 27
➔ Strict regulations on Gambling by the
Japanese government in 18th century
➔ Those in power cracked down on popular
card games and scattered the players
➔ Regulations began to ease by the late
1800. Still banned foreign playing cards
➔ Government accepted Hanafuda cards
made by Fusajiro Yamauchi
Luck as an Unfair advantage

28. Fusajiro Yamauchi
28
➔ He was able to deliver a game into a
game-starved world.
➔ He saw that moment, and grabbed
the opportunity
➔ Lucky to be born in this moment
where there’s a gap in the market

29. 29
Im lucky and I know it!
Guiding questions to ask yourself in terms of location:
How do we get more lucky?
❏ Are you near other, similar businesses?
❏ Do you have access to the talent you need to build your business?
❏ Are you easy to find for potential clients or customers
❏ Trust your intuition and gut feeling
❏ Expect to be lucky
❏ Turn bad luck into good luck
❏ Take more action

30. 30
Education
and
Expertise
Both your formal schooling and
also you self learning, which
gives you intellectual and
technical know-how

31. Education and expertise as your
unfair advantage
❏ Life is learning, the moment your arrive
31

32. Does education matter?
❏ Knowledge
❏ Network
❏ Signalling
Three main benefits:

33. Some Entrepreneurs that came from private
schools
Bill Gates
Microsoft
Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook
Elon Musk
Tesla and SpaceX
33
Jack Dorsey
Twitter
James Dyson
Dyson
Reid Hoffman
Paypal Linkedin

34. 34
If you don’t succeed at first just
try and try again!
How to develop your education and expertise:
❏ Learn online
❏ Books
❏ Mentors
❏ Doing it yourself

35. 35
Your social status, network and connections
Your personal brand
Confidence and self - esteem
Status

36. Status as your Unfair Advantage
36
❏ Your personal brand
❏ How others see you
Outer status
❏ Higher social status comes more prestige, honour and respect
❏ Perception
❏ Commands attention
❏ Increased by all the other pillars of the MILES framework
Inner status
❏ This is your self esteem
❏ Liking and giving value to yourself

37. Kylie Jenner
➔ “self -made” billionaire at 21 as confirmed
by Forbes last Marc 2019
37
➔ Started a trend of using makeup to make
the lips seem bigger
➔ Developed “Kylie Lip kits” and later on
rebranded to “Kylie Cosmetics” which has
an estimated net worth of 800 million usd
➔ Maintains sole ownership and credits her
100 million social media followers for her
success

38. 38
I’m Cool and I know it!
How to use and develop your status:
❏ Highlight it when necessary
❏ Strengthen your inner status

39. Bonus
Utilizing unfair advantages in an organizational level
39

40. 40
➔ They started of as a web design agency with a remote
workforce
➔ Had difficulty using emails to manage projects as they got
more clients
➔ They developed a software for internal use
➔ Clients began asking about this software
➔ They bootstrapped
➔ They embraced the culture of remote working

41. “ I am a young, white, educated
male… I got really, really lucky
and life isn’t fair” - Evan Spiegel
41

42. “ I am a young, white, educated
male… I got really, really lucky
and life isn’t fair” - Evan Spiegel
42

43. 43

44. Sources
➔ The Unfair Advantage:
https://www.amazon.com/Unfair-Advantage-Startup-Success-Starts/dp/1788163311
➔ What makes people succesfull
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGbCR_pq4_A
➔ Startups, Entrepreneurship and Unfair Advantages | Hasan Kubba |
TEDxSOAS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMd3_xJ_GzU
44

45. Thank you!!!!
45