What if you had a $0 budget?

 

I was watching this interview with Rich Barton, one of the few people in the world who has created multiple successful businesses across industries - Expedia, Zillow, and Glassdoor.*

He recalls the story of how Zestimate (home price estimate) was created. 

One of the investors, Bill Gurly, asked him a powerful question before they launched Zillow - what would you do if you had no ad budget? 

Good questions can be life and business changing. And in this case, it turned out to be. 

Rich and his team ended up creating Zestimate and market reports, which generated a lot of interest and organic traffic.

Constraints breed creativity. Sometimes, imagination can solve problems better than money can. 

Coincidentally, I watched another video on the same week where Linkedin's CBO shared how the other end of the spectrum - thinking without any constraints - leads to more creative solutions as well. 

I'd square both these points into this one piece of advice: If you are in a place of abundance, think with constraints. If you are in a place of scarcity or business as usual, think without any constraints. 

Notes: 

1. Rich Barton's common theme behind all his businesses was "power to the people". Give more visibility, so people can make informed decisions.

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