#13: My 3 Success Principles

When I started this newsletter, my aim was for 95% of the content to be strategic or tactical iGaming advice.

My loose value proposition was to share actionable ideas on how to grow your iGaming business or perform better in your roles.

But something quite unexpected has happened.

The two “essays” on which people give me regular feedback are the non-iGaming-specific, more principles-based stuff.

So today, I’m going to share something again that isn’t diving into the iGaming weeds. But I hope is valuable to you in how you operate and grow within the industry and your life.

Introducing…

The 3 key principles that have taken me from affiliate newb in Belarus to international iGaming investor

My 17+ years in this industry have been a pretty wild ride. In 2007, if I could have looked into the future and seen the things I’d experience and where I’d end up, I’d have thought someone spiked my tea, and I was going crazy.

But the more I’ve thought about it, I can pinpoint 3 principles that have led me to this point and will continue to drive me into the future.

I first saw these principles articulated by Naval Ravikant (check him out). But since then, I’ve been able to put a name to something I’ve been actioning all this time. 

1. Acquire specific knowledge

Naval defines specific knowledge as highly technical and creative, and cannot be acquired by reading books. It is hands-on and experience-based.

Since I started iGaming, I’ve been a student of the game. I’ve watched, listened, and, importantly, tested relentlessly. From being hands-on learning tactical marketing elements like SEO to strategic stuff, and learning the principles that drive the industry. It has been a relentless pursuit of building specific knowledge.

That’s the point of building specific knowledge. You have to make yourself multidisciplinary and unique. Stack skills in your favour that the industry finds valuable. The more unique you are, the more irreplaceable you are. And the more irreplaceable you are, the more valuable you are.

That value is what helped me evolve from an affiliate hustler to being a key leader for an international operator. 

I built two types of specific knowledge to give me that evolution over a long timeline.

1) Timely specific knowledge: This is the more tactical stuff that fixes a bleeding neck. AI is a perfect example. Everyone’s scrambling to figure out how to use it. It’s currently in high demand, but it may not be wise to focus solely on this long-term if you want to be irreplaceable.

2) Timeless specific knowledge: These are foundational, evergreen skills—the things that drive the industry and will always be true: things like customer psychology, building relationships, and persuasion.

When stacked together, these two types of knowledge are a superpower. 

Example: 

Know how to use AI? Cool. You’ll be in high demand, but then everyone figures it out (or platforms make it more user-friendly), and you’ll be looking for the next in-demand skill.

But stack it with a timeless skill like mathematics and analytics, and you have a mix of skills that allow you to be an expert in utalising AI in a way that’s difficult to replicate.

Blask CEO Max Tesla is a good example of this. He was already a master of data analysis and more recently stacked his specific knowledge with AI. The combination of both has allowed him to combine both and make himself a highly valuable asset.

2. Accountability

The next step in my iGaming journey was to embrace accountability. This is a pretty straightforward one and doesn’t require much explanation.

But society rewards those who take responsibility and live or die by their actions. Throughout my career, I’ve never shirked responsibility, I’ve always sought it out. My very first head management role in 2014 felt daunting to me. I had major impostor syndrome. But I knew that I needed to take more accountability if I was to proceed.

And then from there, I became a CMO and then CCO for an international operator. But it’s not just about pushing for higher roles but pushing for more responsibility within those roles.

At the international operator, for example, I saw an opportunity for improved CRM to earn the business more money. So I took control and implemented strategies to improve it.

So when you’re evaluating your replaceability, it depends not only on your specific knowledge but also on your level of responsibility.

Often, people are scared of responsibility because it involves risk. If things go wrong, it can damage one's self-esteem and reputation. But assuming you’ve acquired a strong stack of specific knowledge, then accountability is how you progress.

And guess what - accountability is often rewarded with equity. This was the early beginning of my “investment” career. Only at that time, it was largely sweat equity.

3. Find leverage

You’ve built specific knowledge that makes you highly valuable to the industry and society. Then, you take on increasing amounts of responsibility that make you even less replaceable and better compensated.

Many people stop there, and that’s completely fine. But I felt driven to have an even bigger impact on the industry, on myself, and my family.

The problem was… my impact was limited to my finite energy and the output I could have with my own hands within a single company.

So, for me to grow further, I had to find a way to leverage my specific knowledge and scale it far beyond my finite energy. This is where my new chapter as an iGaming investor comes into play. 

By investing in a number of projects, I can apply my knowledge to them, and my knowledge is therefore amplified.

Naval describes leverage as “a force multiplier to your judgment”

There are a few different types of leverage that I’m focusing on (you’ll be able to see this in what I’m doing):

Capital leverage

This is the oldest and most dominant form of leverage in our society. It is also the most risky. Deploying it properly requires a great deal of specific knowledge. Otherwise, you can say goodbye to your capital and return to square one. 

Product leverage

Product leverage, particularly digital, is one of the best “new school” forms of leverage. The ability for us to create software or digital forms of a product or service that have low marginal costs of replication is a phenomenon that has created some of the wealthiest people in the world. 

Media leverage

Of course, you’ve probably seen a lot of this one from me. (I mean, you’re reading it, right!?) But media allows me to scale my specific knowledge and provide the world with value. Without media, I can only speak to one person at a time. But now, with media leverage, I’m gaining well over 1 million impressions in a year.

Through LinkedIn, guest appearances on podcasts, and guest posting on industry websites, I’m not being busy for the sake of it or because I’m attention-seeking. I’m using media leverage to create opportunities.

But the key thing about media leverage that not enough people understand is that you must lead from a place of value. Too many people are transactional in their approach to media leverage.

Value-driven media is more of a long game, but the impact over a longer time horizon is far greater than if you spend an equal amount of time being transactional.

Value is a multiplier of leverage. It means more people read, more people share, and more people want to publish your content.

Conclusion... a few words on principles-based thinking.

These three principles, followed in order, can have a huge impact on your life. Maybe you’re starting from the beginning, maybe you’re in the leverage phase. But I think most “successful” people have followed a similar journey.

In general, focusing on understanding the first principles of anything I want to learn has been the biggest driver in my journey. So I guess the meta-principle has been:

Focus on first principles haha

Once you learn a topic's first principles or foundations, you are empowered to think for yourself before creating the strategies and tactics to achieve your desired outcome.

Sometimes, that means creating new strategies/tactics. Other times, it means finding the right strategies/tactics but applying them correctly because you understand the context due to your first-principles thinking.

This is especially important in iGaming. Many brands are clones of each other—they have the same branding, strategies, and tactics. Switching to first-principles thinking will drive more innovation.

In our society, the issue is that people don’t want to think or take risks. They want the strategy and tactic laid out for them. The problem is that tactics change; if you only follow them, you’re a slave to the first-principles thinkers who create them.

So let me know…

Do you want me to publish more principles-driven content in the future? This newsletter is for you, and I only want to share what people find valuable.