A Beginner’s Mind Dreams Bigger
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few.” — Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice
I first learned the Zen Buddhist concept of a “beginner’s mind” (shoshin) as a consultant. Practicing a beginner’s mind meant that with every new client, I’d ask questions and examine data without the bias of my experience.
That concept flies counter to almost all our instincts. We’re supposed to rely on our existing body of knowledge and experience to inform our decisions. We’re supposed to repeat familiar behaviors until they become skills. In fact, we’re often rewarded for it — it’s what makes us “experts.”
So what’s the benefit in setting aside what you already know?
A leap into the unknown can lead to incredible insights.
When you approach every situation with a beginner’s search for knowledge, you forgo assumptions. You ask questions, listen, research, and grapple with what you don’t know. In return, you cultivate creativity, which can lead to game-changing breakthroughs.
I had to learn to pay attention to my thought patterns and set aside a lifetime of learned systems and subconscious decision making, but when I refused to start from a baseline of “This is how things are always done,” it freed me up to imagine how things could be.
It’s this way of thinking that made Kin Insurance possible.
A leap into the unknown can lead to incredible insights.
“That’s Not How Things Are Done”
Homeowners insurance represents $103 billion in premium largely untouched by modern technology, and it’s an industry rife with inefficiencies that cost homeowners big time. For example, more than 30 percent of premium dollars go toward maintaining overhead for legacy insurers — not paying claims.
My co-founder Lucas Ward and I saw the potential for technology to change this industry for the better. Bringing home insurance fully online eliminates unnecessary overhead — there’s no need to pay for brick-and-mortar insurance agencies we see everywhere (in some areas, more often than fast food restaurants). So we went to work on creating what would eventually become Kin.
As we researched the industry and did our due diligence, we heard over and over from legacy insurance companies, “That’s not how things are done in the insurance world.”
Though Lucas and I were both experienced financial tech entrepreneurs at this point, we were new to insurance. Hearing our vision was impossible from so many insiders may have given us more pause if we didn’t question why things were done the way they’d always been done.
We wanted to know if there was another way. And there was.
The Art of Asking Questions
When creating Kin, we asked a lot of questions, but we primarily wanted to know:
- Why do insurers require homeowners to answer complicated questions about their homes — answers most of us don’t know?
- Can we source publicly available data to automate these answers?
- Can we use that same data to help us assess and price risk?
- Can we make a home insurance buying experience digital and still offer the amazing customer service policyholders have been craving from insurance companies?
- How can we serve Florida and other catastrophe-prone states and make the coverage affordable?
Asking these questions opened us up to creative solutions and mitigated the fear of failure. When you work from a point of inquiry and uncertainty, you are able to experiment and see what works and what doesn’t.
After all, we didn’t want to just make home insurance a little better. We wanted to reinvent it.
The Start of Something Truly New
We looked at the data from scratch and drew our own conclusions. Without all those industry biases, we were able to come up with a way to serve Florida, keep costs low, and create an easy online insurance buying experience.
Just years after we launched Kin as a digital broker, we even became a home insurance carrier in Florida. Our customers couldn’t be happier.
If there’s one thing you take away from this story, let it be that being an expert means you need to pay more attention, not less. Cultivate a curiosity about the world around you and why it is the way it is.
When you’re dealing with an industry older than color television — or any industry, really — that energy and receptiveness can help create meaningful change in people’s lives. Use it for good.
About the Author
Sean Harper is the CEO and co-founder of Kin Insurance, an insurtech startup and licensed insurance carrier that leverages technology to simplify homeowners insurance. Previously, Sean founded FeeFighters, a payments company later bought by Groupon, and TSS-Radio, an ecommerce company that became an Inc. 500 fastest-growing business. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Sean was a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group and an investor at Longworth Venture Partners. He earned his AB and MBA at the University of Chicago.
