Conclusion: Our Origin Story

Conclusion, the origin story of scaling.com and how to learn more. Acute focus, open sharing, exacting measurement, a license to shoot for the moon. These are the hallmarks of modern goal science. John Doar, Venture Capitalist and Billionaire. I started writing this book near the end of 2023, shortly after the publication of my third and final book co-authored with Dan Sullivan, 10x is easier than 2x. While writing 10x, it became clear to me that though transformative, it was time to move on from my collaboration with Dan. I learned an enormous amount from Dan directly, from his strategic coach clients and from the process of writing three powerful books. I saw firsthand what books could do for a business. R sold over a million copies and drew thousands of clients to Dan's coaching company, exceeding the impossible goal Dan and I had set for our collaboration project. After completing my collaboration with Dan, I wasn't exactly sure what would come next. As always, I was prayerful yet proactive. I wanted to do something bigger than ever before. For a time, I was both working on this book and exploring other potential collaborations. I reached out to many big name people, people you've heard of, who I knew I could scale a training and education company with. These people knew and respected my work greatly, most of them wanted to work with me. There was just one problem. I had a very high floor in what I was willing to accept as a business deal. I knew what I brought to the table and I knew it would be worth hundreds of millions or even billions to whoever I collaborated with. I also brought not only a publisher, a large audience, and my writing abilities and knowledge, but more importantly, I brought my faith and full commitment to whatever I did. That's why my books with Dan worked so much better than anyone other than me expected. I hadn't just brought my talent and resources, I brought my full faith and commitment. I relied on God to help me grow and produce more than I ever had. Ultimately, I was disappointed as all of these big name people decided my floor was too high and weren't willing to invest what I required to partner with them, despite knowing it would be a 10x or 100x return. This was incredibly instructive to me. As I've reflected on it since then, it's become clear why most people, including successful people, fail to create the impact and scale they say they want. Primarily, it comes down to them remaining the bottleneck in what they are building. They are still attached to being the king or queen of their project. They aren't willing to build something that can scale far beyond them. As a result, they can't get the superstar partners required to achieve impossible goals and rapid scaling. What was so incredible to me was that many of these very high-profile business thought leaders claimed to teach scaling to entrepreneurs, yet here they were unwilling to take the actions that true rapid scaling requires. They might have been willing to set impossible goals, but they were not raising their floor or focusing on the investments and partnerships required to achieve their scaling goals. This was when I realized I was truly onto something new. I had discovered something that even the biggest names teaching business theory did not understand or apply. During this period, I had a guy I'd met a few years prior, Blake Erickson, reach out to me multiple times. He told me he felt strongly that he wanted to work with me and elevate what I was doing. In August of 2024, Blake asked me if he could fly to Florida and present his ideas at my house. It would only take an hour or two. I agreed to the meeting, though I didn't expect much. But he presented, though, ended up blowing my mind and becoming the basis of what is now our company, Scaling.com. He told me that if we were going to make a sizable impact, we'd need to be singularly focused. "We need to punch the same hole in the wall over and over until we break through," he said. "I feel like scaling is the subject we could absolutely own." "Interesting," I replied, "that is exactly what I've been studying and developing the past few years." The alignment was there. He had intuited some of the very same principles I had about what makes scaling possible and saw the fact that no one else was teaching it properly. Despite many gurus talking about and teaching the subject, there remained no evidence-based and battle-tested method or model for scaling. There was a massive hole in the market. Blake and I could clearly see it. After talking through the business and financial logistics, such as ownership, etc., and what would make the business compelling and high-potential, Blake was completely open. "I'm not here to negotiate with you," he told me. He then suggested something that, to me, seemed impossible. We agreed that if we created a training company that taught businesses how to scale effectively and aggressively, he would be the primary leader and trainer of the organization, though of course I would be doing some training as well. My role, however, would be primarily focused on developing the frameworks and tools for the members. Blake's wisdom intrigued me as he laid this out, though I still wasn't sure about the partnership. "The problem, Ben," Blake continued, "is that if people join our training company, they are going to want to learn solely from you, not me. You're Dr. Benjamin Hardy. I still don't have the same credibility you have." "Eh, that's not such a problem," I shrugged off, "I can position you, even within the book." Blake sat there calmly, "I have something to propose to you, which I've been thinking about the past few weeks. I'm not sure what you'll say," he said. I was just listening. "To have the credibility I need to adequately lead this company and to train it, I feel I should be an author on the book," Blake said, now slightly bashfully. It took a minute for his comment to register. "Wait, what?" I replied. "You want me to put you on the book, the one I've been writing this past year?" "Yes," Blake stated, simply, "it would be good strategy for what we're trying to build, saving us at least a year for me to build credibility. It would enable me to far more effectively own my role as leader and trainer of the company. Plus, I feel I could help you finalize the framework." My initial reaction was that Blake didn't deserve such an ask, being the co-author on my book. Even if he did help me refine and improve my thinking, that just felt like too much. In reality, I just didn't know whether I was willing to operate at that level of abundance and teamwork. Of course, I had my concerns. I wondered whether it would be a risk to my audience or publisher. I felt my publisher wouldn't be stoked. I'd lost my previous publisher, one of the top business publishers in the world, in order to write books with Dan Sullivan. It felt like I might lose my publisher again if I took this idea seriously. That being said, I could see the brilliance in Blake's thinking. I could see that it was phenomenal strategy and advanced pathway thinking. I could also see that with Blake's help, I could refine the thinking of the book and get the material where it needed to be. He has an extremely keen ability to discern signal from noise, and I could use that. The more I thought about it, the more it shocked me how bold Blake was. It reminded me of when I first approached Dan Sullivan, yet even bolder. Not only was Blake's business concept to build a training company on scaling a bullseye signal for me, but he also had the ability to see the best paths to scale it incredibly. Blake's boldness, combined with his genius in co-authoring the book and building a training company, amazed me. There was just one final question I really had to ask myself. Was I willing to be the transformational leader I never had, where I abundantly give this guy all I've built? Was I willing to set him up for greater success than I myself would have? These were the thoughts flooding through my mind as I pondered the gravity of Blake's idea. He sat patiently as I processed it all. "Look," I said, "I love the idea. It's actually genius, but I don't feel right just giving it to you. I'm bringing not only my publisher and audience, but I'm also bringing the ideas and over a year's worth of work so far on this book. That's a lot of work and a lot of risk for me. I'd be committing to you and the company you want to build. Not only do I need your help improving the frameworks and concepts we will teach, but I feel you need skin in the game to get your name on this book." "I agree," Blake said, listening. For you to be an author on this book, that would require a $1 million upfront investment from you. "Honestly, I could ask for a lot more, but I feel that is an adequate threshold to demonstrate your commitment to this project." "Let me talk to my wife," Blake replied without hesitation. We chatted a little longer and from there, Blake got in his rental car and headed to the airport to fly home to Salt Lake City. "Ten minutes after leaving my house, I got a text from Blake. I just spoke to my wife. We'd love to make the investment." I sat there, staring at his text and thinking to myself, "This guy is serious." It took a few more weeks to fully wrap my head around it. It seemed so opposite to what I was planning on doing after departing my collaboration with Dan. But the more I got to know Blake, the more I realized he could be one of those special people, a super who, who if properly funneled, could do something massive. He'd already proven himself as a specially gifted missionary, as mentioned in chapter three of this book, baptizing ten times the average of his mission. He'd proven his ability to scale, building a sales organization from $0 to eight figures within four years and making himself millions of dollars in the process before age 25. His willingness to invest a huge amount of his own net worth demonstrated a level of all in commitment that rivaled mine. But also, the more I spoke with Blake, the more I needed his vision and his high floor to stretch to my own next level. Blake and I ended up running a 90 day challenge for hundreds of business owners to achieve impossible goals. And in that process, he dramatically elevated the clarity and impact of what we were teaching. As expected, when I went to my publisher, they were initially concerned, but ultimately, my conviction could not be denied. I was all in and willing to lose my publisher if required. Blake and I were not only going to do one book together, but we would do an entire scaling framework series, several books. As many as it took to teach everything needed to rapidly scale businesses. We knew that to scale, we'd have to work with only the best, with super who's that could make the impossible possible. We decided to add Daniel Amato, a highly successful entrepreneur who had started, scaled, and sold many technology companies as our CEO. Daniel was also one of the greatest men Blake and I both knew, in terms of who he was as a person and a man of God. With Daniel's deep expertise in building valuable companies, he delved into IP, business planning, and the fundamental drivers of equity value to maximize long term growth. With his background in business and specifically in software or SaaS, he helped us develop a profoundly simple and scalable business model for the training company. There would only be one product offering, not several confusing layers that most training companies had. After acquiring the domain, we decided to name the company Scaling.com. Now I faced a hard reality. The deadline of this book was fast approaching and I knew it wasn't where I needed it to be organizationally. I'd let go of my editor several months before who, even though she was amazing, couldn't help me at the level I needed. Tucker Max had edited all three of my books with Dan. He knows writing and business books probably better than anyone on the planet, but also he's the clearest thinker and most direct communicator I have ever met. There's zero noise with Tucker, only signal. Granted, he delivers that signal sometimes so directly and brutally that if you're not open to it, you'll be offended, but the signal is incredibly strong and useful. I reached out to Tucker and said I needed his best editing and fast. I only had a few weeks until the deadline. After agreeing to a deal, Tucker jumped in and saw the brilliance of what this could be, as well as the help I needed. He committed to edit the entire scaling series, seeing the potential for helping businesses globally. If you want to scale, you've got to work with the best. If you work with the best, you can't have an ego. You can't be worried about being right. To quote the novelist Stephen King, you've got to kill your darlings. To scale, the floor has to be extremely high on everything you do. At every step of the way, we ourselves apply the scaling framework we've developed to our own company, and we intend to continue doing that. Our impossible goal is for Scaling.com to transform millions of businesses throughout the world, simplifying and normalizing the scaling process. We feel that in early 2025, as we finish this book, right now is a critical time in human history. Helping millions of companies to scale is something we feel is incredibly important for both the United States and for the world. Work and stagnant companies aren't going to help individuals and they won't help the world. In addition to simplifying and democratizing scaling broadly, we intend to help tens of thousands of companies directly through our rigorous training process at Scaling.com. Scaling.com is a training process unlike any other in the world. First, we have the most powerful scaling framework, which has been refined empirically through thousands of companies we've worked with. It's also the framework we ourselves use to scale our company. Additionally, Scaling.com is the only performance-based training program in the world. Not only do we expect our members to scale, we hold them accountable to do so. Their success matters to us. If they are not scaling aggressively, we don't keep taking their money. By doing this, we've built one of the most unique communities in the world. It's not just a few outliers scaling, such as in other training programs. At Scaling.com, everyone is scaling. It is for this reason that we have a rigorous application and interview process, to ensure that only those fully committed to aggressive scaling join. If you're not serious about 10Xing your company in the very near future, we won't accept you into the program. We understand how essential it is to be around other people scaling, as well as the damaging impact of having the wrong people in the room. A primary form of education and training at Scaling.com is decoding case studies of how our members apply the Scaling framework to achieve seemingly impossible goals regularly. Everyone in the community, including the actual founders, all learn from each other and share experiences. The community is deep, generous, and transformative. If this sounds appealing to you, and you want to be a part of this, we are taking applications for membership at Scaling.com.