Skip to content
HIKIAgentic Learning Center ES
Concept

The flywheel: the wheel that ties your loops together

The flywheel is the strategy that ties your loops into a wheel where each turn builds on the last. You learn to draw yours from facts about your business, to spot the doom loop, three ideas for getting started (the four fits, the cold start and infrequent purchases) and why it pays to run the loop by hand before you automate it.

What it solves

If you switch tactics every quarter and nothing adds up, this is where you pick one direction and see which part of your business pushes the next.

To get started

In Turning the Flywheel (2019), Jim Collins describes a heavy wheel: the first push barely moves it, but each turn builds on the last and momentum accumulates. A flywheel has four to six components, and each is an almost inevitable consequence of the one before.

The flywheel is the strategy. Loops are the measurable mechanisms that turn one or more of its components.

The opposite of a flywheel is what Collins calls the doom loop: push in one direction, stop, change course, push in another. Ads this month, a sales team the next, influencers the month after. Nothing builds.

Concept chart: Flywheel or doom loop: push in one direction
On the left is Jim Collins's doom loop: ads this month, flyers the next, and every effort starts from zero. On the right is the flywheel, where every turn adds to the last one. Look back at your last few months and this comparison tells you whether your efforts are building on each other or starting over each time.

An excerpt from the concept's reading. You study the rest with your tutor, applied to your business.

What you learn

  • The flywheel: the wheel that ties loops together
  • Three more ideas you'll use
  • Four common mistakes

It helps to have seen first

You study it in the course

Growth loops: grow your company faster

Sources

Every number in the concept comes from these sources. Examples and assumptions are labeled as such.