Making the Impossible Possible: Product Management with Mr. Beast

Picture this: Mr. Beast, standing in front of the ancient pyramids of Egypt, camera crew ready to roll. Getting there wasn't easy—in fact, his team initially told him it was impossible. Permits, logistics, government red tape... the list of obstacles seemed endless. But instead of accepting defeat, he asked one simple question: "Why?"

That question changed everything. Through persistence, creativity, and refusing to take "no" for an answer, his team made the impossible possible. This is exactly what the great product managers do everyday.

During a recent MFM podcast episode, Mr. Beast broke down this simple, but very effective concept.

Always ask “Why?”

Don’t ask it to be annoying, ask it to understand the true problem that is blocking you and your team from achieving the outcome.

Almost every single time you ask, it will lead you to another—often—smaller problem to solve.

Keep doing this until you’ve mapped out all the problems to solve that are collectively impeding you. Once you see and understand all the problems impeding you, two things can happen.

1. You’ll find that all those problems really aren’t as big as they seemed. You can knock them out much faster than expected.

2. Together, with the team, you will all start poking holes in these “problems” and find the shortcuts that will get you to the desired outcome much faster.

Muscle Memory

Good teams will do this every once in a while. Great teams will run this process as normal operating proceeder. Much like a muscle, they will constantly be asking “why” it has to be like that or searching alternative routes.

But even the great teams need an outside source to remind them to exercise this muscle.

I learned this lesson firsthand last week. In passing, our CEO simply asked "why?" It was a powerful reminder that even seasoned teams need someone to spot them during their problem-solving workout.

Competitive Advantage

In a world where moats and advantages are becoming increasingly rare, execution as described above is a serious competitive advantage.

As your competitors get bigger, they become less disciplined and fall into the trap of doing things"the way they have always been done.”

Every time you challenge assumptions and find clever workarounds, you're not just solving problems—you're building an agility that bigger competitors can't match.

Speed of execution, combined with the discipline of constantly questioning the status quo is the competitive advantage that will pay massive dividends.

-Nate

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