Situations where ‘knowledge’ is not important

6 years ago, I met a restaurateur before starting Jibril Cafe. I was presenting him the concept of Jibril, and how it can be distinctive from other cafes. I just want to get feedback from other fellow businessmen on the idea.

In the middle of the meeting, he asked me where’s the business plan. I said, “what do you mean?”. He explained, a 30-pager or so of a document on Jibril. I asked him why would we need such lengthy document? Isn’t it better to start first and be adaptive to the ever-changing circumstances?

He said without the plan, Jibril will fail in the first two months.

That didn’t happen. We’ve been running for 6 years now, and making millions in annual revenue. And his restaurant closed down 2 years after our meeting.

Gloating? No. I’m here to state an observation — People tend to be obsessed with theories and knowledge, especially when it is related to execution. But in many situations, knowledge is not the most important thing.

Does it have a place in the things we do? For sure. But in these situations I’m talking about, operational tenacity and execution are far more important.

Imagine you’re entering a boxing ring. You have plans and theories on how to beat your opponent. First 5 seconds, you’re gonna do this, based on this theory. The next 10 seconds, you’re gonna do that, based on that theory.

And once the fight began, you get punched in the mouth.

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
— Mike Tyson

All your plans are going to go out of the window. What are you going to do? Prove that you’re superior to him in terms of theoretical knowledge?

This fallacy is prevalent in many other aspects of life. To do business, many people think they need an ironclad business plan. With it, they think, their business won’t fail.

To do a film, many people think they need a foolproof screenplay where they tick all boxes of film theories like show-not-tell, Chekhov’s gun, and character development. With it, they think, their film won’t suck.

Are those theories useful? For sure. But here’s the brutal fucking truth — It doesn’t guarantee your product to not suck. You can still have an ironclad business plan, but the business fails. You can still have a foolproof screenplay, but the film is boring as hell.

In anything, there are always substantive knowledge and procedural knowledge. The latter is what I mean by ‘knowledge’ and theories.

Procedural knowledge is retrospective by nature. It’s formed by research, based on past great work. It’s like grammar. Grammar was invented after the invention of language.

And like other procedural knowledge, grammar too won’t guarantee your speech to be great.

You can still make a speech with faultless and flawless grammar, but puts people to sleep in the first 30 seconds you open your mouth.

Being obsessed with business plans and dramatic principles is like those assholes when a great speech is being made, they scream “hey that’s an incorrect usage of modal verbs!”.

Well here’s the thing, asshole. Who the fuck cares?

One business in Silicon Valley made 500 million in the first 5 years. People love the product. But “started with a flawed and faulty business plan”. Who the fuck cares?

One film in Hollywood made 200 million box office with a 50 million budget. Received praises from mass audience and people talk about it for years. But “there are several MacGuffins in the second act”. Who the fuck cares?

They didn’t start their business with murdering people and robbing the bank. It’s just procedural stuff. It’s negligible. Of course, business theories and film principles help. But you don’t have to be obsessed over it.

Most of the time when I see people are obsessing over it, my presumption is they just want to show to their peers that they are ‘knowledgable’ in that respective domain. And most of the time, they have little to no portfolios in that domain. Because they can only talk about it.

Other than tenacity, substantive knowledge is very important. It’s the familiarity with what makes an art ‘great’. It’s the ability to notice anomalies in patterns. It’s the skill to know what the market wants, even though they don’t know they will want it. Substantive knowledge is what makes a speech great.

But here’s the biggest catch — substantive knowledge cannot be learned. It can only be acquired. By life experience, by mixing and dealing with people, by observing nature.

The late Yasmin Ahmad said something beautiful that resonates well with what I’m trying to say:

The way to start writing isn’t by writing at all. But by living. It isn’t about creating something from thin air, but about documenting our personal feelings about the things that we see. Or to put it crudely, how are you going to be a storyteller if you have no story to tell? Perhaps, in the end, there are no such things as creative people; they are only sharp observers with sensitive hearts.

Whenever people ask me how to start a business, I never condescend them with theories. It’s all innate. It starts with ourselves. Why do we want to do that business? After an answer is found, ask “why?” to it. An answer always leads to another question.

If you want to do something. Don’t start by reading theories on it. Start by living it.