Know Your Enemy: How Three Years at McKinsey Shaped My Second Startup
a year ago
- #AI
- #McKinsey
- #Startups
- Understanding both yourself and your competition is crucial for success in any battle or business endeavor.
- The author joined McKinsey for practical reasons like financial stability and resume prestige, as well as aspirational reasons to understand competition and identify startup opportunities.
- At McKinsey, the author worked on projects like building new business units (Leap by McKinsey) and risk transformations for large banks, gaining insights into product development and distribution.
- Key lesson: Distribution and product development are symbiotic; established companies can sell even incremental products well due to their existing channels.
- Large institutions face governance challenges due to their size, making core business reforms difficult but creating opportunities for new, vertically integrated solutions.
- The author's company, Meanwhile, aims to revolutionize the life insurance industry using AI and automation to serve a billion people with a lean team.
- Building new solutions from scratch is harder but more rewarding than trying to reform incumbents with AI tools.