280. Surround and Conquer (Your Biggest Dreams)

<p>When Facebook was first expanding, they used a timeless military strategy to win their most-crucial first users. You can use this strategy to attack your toughest projects, by leveraging hidden complexity to lend devastating power to simple actions.</p> <h3>Facebook faced tough competitors</h3> <p>When Facebook was starting, in the mid-aughts, it was only available at colleges. It wasn’t easy to win new users on campuses that had their own social networks. Who wants to join the network nobody is on? That’s not where you find the big parties. That’s not how you spy on your crush.</p> <p>There was no point in promoting to students who already had better alternatives. Facebook would waste their limited resources, driving themselves out of business. There were plenty of competitors they needed to outlast.</p> <p>An established network at a college was a barrier to winning over any user at that college – a “defense,” if you will. Facebook needed to break through those barriers.</p> <h3>The surround strategy: Attack from the flanks</h3> <p>So they used what <a href= "https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003BHM85O?tag=kadavyinc-20">they called a “surround strategy”</a>. Instead of directly trying to get users on a given campus, they got them indirectly.</p> <h4>The strategy that decimated the Roman army 1800 years ago</h4> <p>Facebook’s surround strategy was borrowed from the “pincer” military strategy. When you’re up against an opponent with strong defenses, it’s often not the best use of your resources to attack them head-on. It’s better to focus on the flanks.</p> <p>Hannibal used a pincer strategy in one of the greatest military upsets in history, at the Battle of Cannae, in 216 B.C., sending the Roman empire into a panic. As the Romans attacked from a concentrated center, the center of Hannibal’s forces fell back, creating a “crescent” shape that helped them attack the flanks. Eventually, Hannibal had the Romans surrounded.</p> <p>The Romans lost so many men that day, they had to lower the draft age to replenish their for