Business Maxims
Biology has mechanisms. Business has maxims. 956 rules, frameworks, and mental models—each traced back to the biological mechanisms that have been optimized over billions of years of evolution.
Concepts with Outcome Bridges
These concepts are human-invented constructs (legal terms, frameworks, acronyms), but the outcomes they're trying to achieve have deep biological roots. We've mapped the bridge between the business surface and the biological mechanism.
Product-Market Fit
Startup & Growth FrameworksFinding an environment where your specific traits provide competitive advantage...
Freemium
Startup & Growth FrameworksLower barriers to relationship formation, then capture value from committed user...
Antifragility
Investment & ValuationConverting volatility into adaptation/improvement...
Sunk Cost Fallacy
Decision-Making Mental ModelsPersistence signals commitment; abandonment signals unreliability...
Confirmation Bias
Decision-Making Mental ModelsEfficient hypothesis testing in information-scarce environments...
Availability Heuristic
Decision-Making Mental ModelsUse memory accessibility as a proxy for frequency/importance...
Loss Aversion
Decision-Making Mental ModelsNOT a bug - asymmetric risk weighting for survival...
Planning Fallacy
Time & PrioritizationOptimism bias that enables action under uncertainty...
Decoy Effect
Time & PrioritizationManipulate relative comparisons to steer choice...
Status Quo Bias
Time & PrioritizationDefault to proven-safe options when uncertainty is high...
Endowment Effect
Time & PrioritizationResist dispossession to maintain survival-critical resources...
Hyperbolic Discounting
Time & PrioritizationAccount for uncertainty and mortality in reward timing...
Antifragility
Systems ThinkingConverting volatility into adaptation/improvement...
Shareholder Value
Consulting & Mba FrameworksOptimize resource allocation for maximum replicative output...
Product-Market Fit
Product ManagementFinding an environment where your specific traits provide competitive advantage...
Technical Debt
Product ManagementBorrow from future capacity to meet immediate survival needs...
Technical Debt
Agile & Software DevelopmentBorrow from future capacity to meet immediate survival needs...
Worse is Better
Agile & Software DevelopmentFavor solutions that are faster to implement, easier to modify, and cheaper to r...
Drag-Along Rights
Governance & OwnershipEnsure collective action when a critical threshold is reached - no individual ca...
Tag-Along Rights
Governance & OwnershipNo group member left behind when the group moves - information and opportunity f...
+ 14 more concepts with outcome bridges
All Concepts by Category
Agile & Software Development 26 concepts
Agile Manifesto Scrum Framework Sprint Daily Standup Retrospective Kanban (Software) WIP Limits Extreme Programming (XP) Pair Programming Test-Driven Development (TDD) Continuous Integration DevOps Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Blameless Postmortems Error Budgets Trunk-Based Development Feature Flags Technical Debt Refactoring Clean Code SOLID Principles DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) YAGNI (You Aren't Gonna Need It) KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) Unix Philosophy Worse is Better
Classic Management Theory 20 concepts
Management by Objectives (MBO) Effective Executive Knowledge Worker Profit Center Theory of the Business "What gets measured gets managed" "Culture eats strategy for breakfast" Scientific Management Taylorism Hawthorne Effect Theory X and Theory Y Hierarchy of Needs Two-Factor Theory (Hygiene-Motivation) 14 Principles of Management Bureaucratic Management Span of Control Delegation Unity of Command Chain of Command Administrative Management
Cognitive Bias: Aristotle's original fallacies (Sophistical Refutations, c. 350 BCE) 11 concepts
Equivocation (homonymy) Amphiboly Accent fallacy Composition fallacy Division fallacy Figure of speech (secundum quid) Accident (a dicto secundum quid) Ignoratio elenchi (irrelevant conclusion) Begging the question (petitio principii) False cause (non causa pro causa) Many questions (complex question)
Cognitive Bias: Attention and perception biases 9 concepts
Cognitive Bias: Attribution biases 15 concepts
Fundamental attribution error (correspondence bias) Actor-observer bias (asymmetry) Self-serving bias Ultimate attribution error Group attribution error Hostile attribution bias Intentionality bias Defensive attribution hypothesis Just-world hypothesis (belief in a just world) Moral luck Trait ascription bias Extrinsic incentives bias Illusion of external agency Depressive realism Learned helplessness
Cognitive Bias: Belief and attitude biases 10 concepts
Cognitive Bias: Causal and statistical fallacies 16 concepts
Wrong direction (reverse causation) Ignoring a common cause Fallacy of the single cause (causal oversimplification) Furtive fallacy Magical thinking Regression fallacy Texas sharpshooter fallacy Cherry picking (suppressed evidence) McNamara fallacy (quantitative fallacy) Simpson's paradox Ecological fallacy P-hacking (data dredging) Garden of forking paths fallacy Misleading vividness Overwhelming exception Lump of labour fallacy
Cognitive Bias: Decision-making and judgment biases 42 concepts
Anchoring effect Availability heuristic Representativeness heuristic Affect heuristic Recognition heuristic Fluency heuristic Take-the-best heuristic Attribute substitution Loss aversion Certainty effect Isolation effect Reflection effect Pseudocertainty effect Possibility effect Framing effect Reference point dependence Status quo bias Default effect Omission bias Action bias Decoy effect (asymmetric dominance) Compromise effect Distinction bias Less-is-better effect Zero-risk bias Ambiguity effect Regret aversion Reactance Planning fallacy Optimism bias (unrealistic optimism) Pessimism bias Overconfidence effect Hard-easy effect Illusion of control Illusion of validity Hindsight bias ("knew-it-all-along" effect) Outcome bias Survivorship bias Confirmation bias Belief perseverance Congruence bias Functional fixedness
Cognitive Bias: Economic and consumer biases 21 concepts
Mental accounting Endowment effect Sunk cost fallacy Denomination effect Money illusion IKEA effect Bottom-dollar effect Cashless effect (pain of paying) Hyperbolic discounting Present bias Projection bias Disposition effect House money effect Break-even effect Myopic loss aversion Ostrich effect Choice overload (paradox of choice) Unit bias Focusing effect (focusing illusion) Peak-end rule Duration neglect
Cognitive Bias: Egocentric biases 21 concepts
Egocentric bias Spotlight effect Illusion of transparency Illusion of asymmetric insight False consensus effect False uniqueness effect Social projection Third-person effect Naive cynicism Curse of knowledge Naive realism Bias blind spot Introspection illusion Impact bias Empathy gap (hot-cold) Focalism Durability bias End-of-history illusion Restraint bias Self-handicapping Moral credential effect (moral licensing)
Cognitive Bias: Forecasting errors 4 concepts
Cognitive Bias: Formal logical fallacies 11 concepts
Cognitive Bias: Indian logic fallacies (Nyāya tradition, c. 6th BCE–2nd CE) 5 concepts
Cognitive Bias: Informal fallacies of ambiguity 7 concepts
Cognitive Bias: Informal fallacies of presumption 15 concepts
Circular reasoning (circulus in demonstrando) False dichotomy (black-or-white fallacy) Post hoc ergo propter hoc Cum hoc ergo propter hoc Slippery slope Hasty generalization Sweeping generalization (accident fallacy) No true Scotsman Moving the goalposts Special pleading Argument to moderation (false compromise) False equivalence Nirvana fallacy (perfect solution fallacy) Proof by assertion (argumentum ad nauseam) Argument from silence (argumentum ex silentio)
Cognitive Bias: Informal fallacies of relevance 28 concepts
Ad hominem (abusive) Ad hominem (circumstantial) Tu quoque (whataboutism) Poisoning the well Guilt by association Bulverism (psychogenetic fallacy) Appeal to authority (argumentum ad verecundiam) Appeal to emotion Appeal to fear (argumentum ad metum/ad baculum) Appeal to pity (argumentum ad misericordiam) Appeal to force (argumentum ad baculum) Appeal to popularity (argumentum ad populum) Appeal to consequences (argumentum ad consequentiam) Appeal to nature Appeal to tradition (argumentum ad antiquitatem) Appeal to novelty (argumentum ad novitatem) Appeal to poverty (argumentum ad Lazarum) Appeal to wealth (argumentum ad crumenam) Appeal to the stone (argumentum ad lapidem) Appeal to ignorance (argumentum ad ignorantiam) Appeal to incredulity Straw man Red herring Genetic fallacy Courtier's reply Chronological snobbery Fallacy of relative privation ("not as bad as") Two wrongs make a right
Cognitive Bias: Memory biases and distortions 57 concepts
Transience Absent-mindedness Blocking Misattribution Suggestibility Persistence Serial position effect (primacy/recency) Von Restorff effect (isolation effect) Levels-of-processing effect Generation effect (self-generation effect) Testing effect (retrieval practice effect) Spacing effect Lag effect Picture superiority effect Bizarreness effect Humor effect Modality effect Suffix effect Zeigarnik effect Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon Cue-dependent forgetting (context effect) Next-in-line effect Part-set cuing inhibition List-length effect Memory inhibition Misinformation effect False memory (DRM paradigm) Source monitoring error (source confusion) Reality monitoring error Cryptomnesia (inadvertent plagiarism) Imagination inflation Leveling and sharpening Continued influence effect Rosy retrospection Fading affect bias Telescoping effect Consistency bias Egocentric bias (memory) Positivity effect (aging) Mood-congruent memory bias Mood-state dependent retrieval Reminiscence bump Cross-race effect (own-race bias) Weapon focus Google effect (digital amnesia) Déjà vu Jamais vu Schema-consistent memory bias Gist memory error Boundary extension Illusory truth effect Sleeper effect Self-reference effect Proactive interference Retroactive interference Childhood amnesia (infantile amnesia) Flashbulb memory
Cognitive Bias: Modern cognitive/philosophical fallacies 17 concepts
Fallacy fallacy (argument from fallacy) Continuum fallacy (sorites/heap/bald man) False analogy Homunculus fallacy Reification (fallacy of misplaced concreteness) Mind projection fallacy Retrospective determinism Historian's fallacy Baconian fallacy Historical fallacy Intentionality fallacy Psychologist's fallacy Naturalistic fallacy Moralistic fallacy Is-ought fallacy (Hume's guillotine) Thought-terminating cliché Kettle logic
Cognitive Bias: Motivated reasoning 7 concepts
Cognitive Bias: Persuasion and influence biases 11 concepts
Cognitive Bias: Probability and statistical reasoning errors 21 concepts
Base rate neglect (base rate fallacy) Conjunction fallacy (Linda problem) Gambler's fallacy (Monte Carlo fallacy) Hot hand fallacy Insensitivity to sample size Law of small numbers (belief in) Regression to the mean ignorance Clustering illusion Illusory correlation Neglect of probability Scope insensitivity (scope neglect) Extension neglect Subadditivity effect Unpacking effect Equiprobability bias Inverse fallacy Prosecutor's fallacy Defense attorney's fallacy Misconceptions of randomness Exponential growth bias Zero-sum bias
Cognitive Bias: Risk perception biases 9 concepts
Cognitive Bias: Self-assessment biases 12 concepts
Cognitive Bias: Social and group biases 30 concepts
Conformity bias Bandwagon effect Social proof (informational social influence) Normative social influence Groupthink Group polarization Risky shift Shared information bias Pluralistic ignorance Authority bias Social desirability bias In-group bias (in-group favoritism) Out-group homogeneity bias Minimal group paradigm effects Outgroup derogation Stereotyping Implicit bias (unconscious bias) Essentialism bias Halo effect Horn effect (devil effect) Cheerleader effect Mere exposure effect Propinquity effect Liking bias Attractiveness stereotype ("what is beautiful is good") Bystander effect Diffusion of responsibility Identifiable victim effect Compassion fade (psychic numbing) Social comparison bias
Cognitive Bias: Temporal biases 7 concepts
Consulting & Mba Frameworks 24 concepts
MECE (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive) Pyramid Principle Issue Trees Hypothesis-Driven Problem Solving 80/20 Analysis Benchmarking Best Practices Core vs Context Outsourcing Decision Frameworks Make vs Buy Build vs Buy vs Partner 7S Framework BCG Growth-Share Matrix GE-McKinsey Matrix Experience Curve Time-Based Competition Strategic Intent Core Competence Balanced Scorecard Strategy Map Activity-Based Costing Economic Value Added (EVA) Shareholder Value Value-Based Management
Decision-Making Mental Models 40 concepts
Inversion Second-Order Thinking Pre-Mortem 10-10-10 Rule Reversible vs Irreversible Decisions Regret Minimization Framework Opportunity Cost Sunk Cost Fallacy Switching Costs First Principles Thinking Analogical Reasoning Red Queen Effect Survivorship Bias Confirmation Bias Hindsight Bias Anchoring Availability Heuristic Representativeness Heuristic Loss Aversion Prospect Theory System 1 / System 2 WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is) Peak-End Rule Base Rate Neglect Narrative Fallacy Ludic Fallacy Iatrogenics Chesterton's Fence Schelling Point Game Theory Prisoner's Dilemma Nash Equilibrium Zero-Sum vs Positive-Sum Map vs Territory Goodhart's Law McNamara Fallacy Streetlight Effect Observer Effect Cobra Effect Perverse Incentives
Eponymous Laws 38 concepts
Parkinson's Law Peter Principle Goodhart's Law Campbell's Law Brooks's Law Conway's Law Metcalfe's Law Moore's Law Amdahl's Law Hofstadter's Law Murphy's Law Gall's Law Cunningham's Law Sayre's Law Shirky Principle Amara's Law Jevons Paradox Say's Law Gresham's Law Dunning-Kruger Effect Hanlon's Razor Occam's Razor Brandolini's Law (Bullshit Asymmetry) Lindy Effect Matthew Effect Pareto Principle Reed's Law Sturgeon's Law Benford's Law Zipf's Law Gilder's Law Wirth's Law Sutton's Law Little's Law Betteridge's Law Dilbert Principle Putt's Law Postel's Law (Robustness Principle)
Governance & Ownership 24 concepts
Agency Theory Principal-Agent Problem Stewardship Theory Stakeholder Theory Shareholder Primacy Triple Bottom Line ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Founder's Dilemma Rich vs King Standard Vesting (4-year, 1-year cliff) Double-Trigger Acceleration Drag-Along Rights Tag-Along Rights Anti-Dilution Liquidation Preference Pro-Rata Rights Information Rights Board Composition Best Practices Dual-Class Stock Poison Pill Golden Parachute Clawback Provisions Say on Pay Proxy Fight
Investment & Valuation 46 concepts
Margin of Safety Mr. Market Circle of Competence Economic Moat Owner Earnings Look-Through Earnings Lollapalooza Effect Inversion Mental Models Latticework Two-List Strategy Punch Card Investing Power Law Distribution (VC returns) Spray and Pray Portfolio Construction Theory Barbell Strategy Antifragility Black Swan Fat Tails Skin in the Game Via Negativa Ergodicity Kelly Criterion Expected Value Regret Minimization Framework One-Way vs Two-Way Door Decisions Day 1 vs Day 2 Working Backwards Six-Pager / Narratives Two-Pizza Rule Disagree and Commit Type 1 vs Type 2 Decisions Compound Interest Dollar-Cost Averaging Index Fund Philosophy Efficient Market Hypothesis Random Walk Value Investing Growth Investing GARP (Growth at Reasonable Price) Ten-Bagger Invest in What You Know Zweig's Rule Dogs of the Dow Contrarian Investing Asymmetric Bets Optionality
Miscellaneous Notable Frameworks 15 concepts
Numerical Business Rules 26 concepts
Rule of 72 Rule of 40 Rule of 3 and 10 80/20 Rule (Pareto Principle) 10x Rule Rule of 7 (marketing touches) 50/30/20 Rule (budgeting) 1% Rule (internet participation) Rule of 150 (Dunbar's Number) 4% Rule (retirement) 10,000 Hour Rule Rule of 3 (consulting/presentations) Magic Number (SaaS efficiency) 40-40-20 Rule (direct mail) Rule of 78s 3x Rule (VC returns) 2x-3x Liquidation Preference 5:1 LTV:CAC Ratio 3:1 LTV:CAC Minimum Rule of 3 (market structure) 20% Time Rule 70-20-10 Rule (learning) 70-20-10 Rule (innovation portfolio) 1-9-90 Rule (online engagement) 5-25 Rule (customer retention profit) Rule of 55
Operations & Execution 23 concepts
Theory of Constraints (TOC) The Goal (Drum-Buffer-Rope) Throughput Accounting Bottleneck Analysis Toyota Production System (TPS) Lean Manufacturing Just-in-Time (JIT) Kanban Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) 5S Methodology Poka-Yoke (Error-Proofing) SMED (Single-Minute Exchange of Die) Muda, Muri, Mura Gemba Andon Six Sigma DMAIC DPMO (Defects Per Million Opportunities) Total Quality Management (TQM) Deming's 14 Points PDCA Cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act) Statistical Process Control Business Process Reengineering
Organizational & Team Heuristics 32 concepts
Span of Control (7±2) Two-Pizza Teams Squad Model Chapters and Guilds Dunbar's Layers (5-15-50-150) Directly Responsible Individual (DRI) RACI Matrix Topgrading A-Player Framework Hire Slow, Fire Fast No Assholes Rule Culture Eats Strategy First Who, Then What Get the Right People on the Bus Radical Candor Psychological Safety High-Output Management Task-Relevant Maturity 1:1 Meetings Only the Paranoid Survive Strategic Inflection Points OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) MBOs (Management by Objectives) Netflix Culture Deck Keeper Test Freedom and Responsibility No Brilliant Jerks Context, Not Control Holacracy Teal Organizations Servant Leadership Situational Leadership
Pricing & Economics 18 concepts
Price Anchoring Charm Pricing (.99) Decoy Effect / Asymmetric Dominance Freemium Model Razors and Blades Model Two-Sided Markets / Platform Economics Price Discrimination Willingness to Pay Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter Gabor-Granger Technique Cost-Plus Pricing Value-Based Pricing Price Elasticity Veblen Goods / Veblen Effect Giffen Goods Dynamic Pricing Yield Management Rule of 10x Value
Product Management 25 concepts
Kano Model Must-Have, Performance, Delighter Jobs to Be Done Outcome-Driven Innovation Continuous Discovery Opportunity Solution Tree Feature Factory Product-Led Growth Product-Market Fit Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Minimum Lovable Product (MLP) Minimum Marketable Product (MMP) Build Trap Discovery vs Delivery Empowered Teams Roadmap vs Now/Next/Later Feature Prioritization Frameworks MoSCoW Method Story Points Definition of Done User Story Format Acceptance Criteria Technical Debt Feature Creep / Scope Creep Second-System Effect
Sales & Marketing Frameworks 25 concepts
SPIN Selling Challenger Sale Solution Selling MEDDIC / MEDDPICC Sandler Selling System Consultative Selling BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline) 4Ps of Marketing 7Ps of Marketing STP (Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning) Marketing Mix Product Lifecycle Marketing Myopia Diffusion of Innovations AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) Customer Journey Mapping Touchpoints Moments of Truth Net Promoter Score Customer Lifetime Value (CLV/LTV) RFM Analysis (Recency, Frequency, Monetary) Growth Hacking Funnel Metrics Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) A/B Testing
Silicon Valley / Startup Dogma 32 concepts
Move Fast and Break Things Done is Better Than Perfect The Lean Startup Fail Fast Fail Forward Iterate Ramen Profitable Default Alive vs Default Dead Do Things That Don't Scale Be So Good They Can't Ignore You Schlep Blindness Make Something People Want Talk to Users Launch Early Software is Eating the World It's Time to Build Zero to One Competition is for Losers Secrets Definite vs Indefinite Optimism Last Mover Advantage Monopoly vs Perfect Competition The Lean Startup Canvas Disciplined Entrepreneurship (24 Steps) The Hard Thing About Hard Things Wartime CEO vs Peacetime CEO The Struggle Give Ground Grudgingly Founder Mode vs Manager Mode Amp It Up The Mom Test Obviously Awesome (Positioning)
Startup & Growth Frameworks 43 concepts
Lean Startup MVP (Minimum Viable Product) Build-Measure-Learn Pivot or Persevere Product-Market Fit The Only Thing That Matters Pirate Metrics (AARRR) Growth Loops North Star Metric ICE Scoring RICE Scoring Viral Coefficient (K-factor) Net Promoter Score (NPS) Customer Development Four Steps to the Epiphany Business Model Canvas Lean Canvas Value Proposition Canvas Traction Channels Bullseye Framework Mom Test Sean Ellis Test (40% very disappointed) Cold Start Problem Atomic Network Power User Curve DAU/MAU Ratio T2D3 (Triple Triple Double Double Double) SaaS Quick Ratio Net Dollar Retention Logo Retention vs Dollar Retention CAC Payback Period Burn Multiple Hype Cycle J-Curve (Private Equity returns) Hockey Stick Growth Escape Velocity Bowling Pin Strategy Beachhead Market Land and Expand Freemium PLG (Product-Led Growth) The Mom Test Rules Minimum Evolvable Product
Strategic Frameworks 42 concepts
Porter's Five Forces Porter's Generic Strategies Porter's Value Chain SWOT Analysis BCG Matrix (Growth-Share) GE-McKinsey Nine-Box Matrix Ansoff Matrix Blue Ocean Strategy Red Ocean vs Blue Ocean Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) Disruptive Innovation Innovator's Dilemma Three Horizons Framework Core Competencies Resource-Based View (RBV) VRIO Framework Competitive Moat / Economic Moat First-Mover Advantage Fast Follower Advantage Winner-Take-All Markets Network Effects Platform Strategy Crossing the Chasm Technology Adoption Lifecycle S-Curve Adoption Category Design / Category Creation Flywheel Effect Hedgehog Concept BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) Level 5 Leadership Stockdale Paradox Built to Flip vs Built to Last The Innovator's Solution Blitzscaling Lightning Strike Infinite Game vs Finite Game Start With Why / Golden Circle PESTLE Analysis Scenario Planning Red Team / Blue Team War Gaming Six Thinking Hats
Systems Thinking 22 concepts
Feedback Loops Positive vs Negative Feedback Loops Stocks and Flows System Dynamics Leverage Points Tragedy of the Commons Emergence Complex Adaptive Systems Black Swan Events Fat-Tailed Distributions Power Laws Non-Linearity Tipping Point Law of Few / Connectors, Mavens, Salesmen Stickiness Factor The Fifth Discipline Learning Organization Beer Game Bullwhip Effect Cynefin Framework VUCA Antifragility
Time & Prioritization 49 concepts
Eisenhower Matrix Getting Things Done (GTD) Eat the Frog Pomodoro Technique Time Blocking Deep Work Shallow Work Attention Residue Maker's Schedule vs Manager's Schedule Parkinson's Law Planning Fallacy Hofstadter's Law Warren Buffett's 25-5 Rule 4DX (Four Disciplines of Execution) WIG (Wildly Important Goal) Rocks, Pebbles, Sand Time Boxing Timeboxing Weekly Review Most Important Task (MIT) Cialdini's 6 Principles of Persuasion Reciprocity Commitment and Consistency Social Proof Authority Liking Scarcity Unity (7th Principle) Decoy Effect Paradox of Choice Choice Architecture Nudge Theory Default Effect Status Quo Bias Endowment Effect Framing Effect Hyperbolic Discounting Variable Ratio Reinforcement Hook Model Trigger Fogg Behavior Model (B=MAT) Habit Loop (Cue-Routine-Reward) Atomic Habits Framework 1% Better Every Day Identity-Based Habits The Dip Permission Marketing Purple Cow Tribes