Big Crocs vs. Little Crocs

A full-grown saltwater crocodile is a terrifying thing. They can grow to more than 20 feet long and weigh over 2,000 pounds. Their jaws bite down with a force of 3,700 pounds per square inch. And since they can swim about 15 miles per hour, there’s no out-swimming them. So it’s no surprise that at least half of all crocodile attacks on humans are fatal.

But you know what’s even more dangerous than a full-grown saltwater crocodile?

An adolescent one.

True, an adolescent croc isn’t as strong, and his bite is somewhat weaker. But even at 2,500 PSI, it’s still double the bite strength of a lion, a tiger, or a hyena — more than enough to kill you quickly.

So why is the smaller one more dangerous? It has nothing to do with that old story about rattlesnakes — the one that says young rattlers have the worst bites because they can’t control how much venom they inject. That’s a myth. An adult rattlesnake actually produces, stores, and injects 20 times more venom than a baby.

The real reason an adolescent croc is more dangerous is much simpler. It’s faster. It accelerates more quickly. It changes direction more suddenly. At some point, the additional size and weight of an adult crocodile stops delivering more killing power — and just starts slowing him down.

That’s exactly why startups are so dangerous.

You don’t see them coming.

When Reed and I started Netflix in 1998, Blockbuster had 9,000 stores, 60,000 employees, and $6 billion in revenue. We had a warehouse in Scotts Valley, a hundred thousand DVDs, and no idea what we were doing. On paper, it should have been the most lopsided fight in business history. And it was — just not in the direction anyone expected.

Blockbuster couldn’t move. They couldn’t change direction. Every late fee, every retail lease, every store manager’s bonus structure — all of it locked them into the way things had always been done. They were the 20-foot crocodile. We were the adolescent.

Here’s the thing about being big. The very things that made you successful — the scale, the systems, the playbook everyone else has to study — are the same things that make you slow. You can’t cannibalize your legacy product line. You can’t ship the new feature that breaks the old code base. You can’t tell the 70,000 people whose comp is tied to revenue that you’re going to give some of that revenue away to delight a customer.

If you’re running a mature business and you think your size and scale will protect you? Think again. They’re not protecting you. They’re slowing you down.

And if you’re an early-stage company going up against an entrenched competitor? Stop being intimidated by their size. That’s not their strength. That’s where they’re vulnerable. Take advantage of the one thing you have that they can never have again — the ability to turn on a dime.

Because whether it’s an African river delta or a competitive startup category, the rule is the same. It’s not survival of the fittest. It’s survival of the quickest.

And if you’re unwilling to disrupt yourself, I promise someone smaller, hungrier, and quicker is working hard to disrupt you.