Scott Adams attributes his success as the author and illustrator of Dilbert to skill stacking.
This is the idea of layering talents you have one on top of the other to create uniqueness.
Why create uniqueness?
The market rewards rarity.
There are two ways to become rare.
The first is to be the best at something.
The problem?
Being the absolute best at something is hard.
How many Premier League footballers or NBA players are there in the world? The odds are heavily against you.
But can you be in the top 25% of something? Sounds much more doable.
Now, can you be in the top 25% in two or three things?
Harder, but still achievable. We all have at least a few things in our lives that we feel we’re good at.
For Scott Adams, he knew he wasn’t the best artist in the world.
But could he draw cartoons better than most people? Yep.
Was he funny enough to be a globe-trotting comedian?
No, but he could tell a joke and get a laugh.
Combine these together, with some experience of working in corporate IT, and you get Dilbert.
There was nothing else like Dilbert. So it did very well and made Scott Adams very successful.
The market rewards rarity.
What does this all have to do with software?
More tomorrow.