John Mullins’ Rule-Breaking Playbook for Founders

In a 2024 TED Talk, London Business School entrepreneurship professor John Mullins posed a simple challenge to founders who want to build something consequential: sometimes you need to break the rules to innovate, so which ones?

John Mullins on the TED stage explaining why founders should start with problems, not products.

His answer arrives as six “counter-conventional mindsets” that flip big-company wisdom on its head and give scrappy teams a better shot at changing their corner of the world.

Mullins begins with a definition.

A mindset is the set of “attitudes, habits, thoughts, mental inclination” that predetermine our response when opportunity shows up. In other words, founders do not just ship products, they cultivate reflexes.

Consider his opening example. In 1995, design teacher Lynda Weinman bought the Lynda.com domain to give students a digital sandbox.

By 2002 she moved all her teaching online, and years later the company was acquired and became LinkedIn Learning for 1.5 billion dollars. For Mullins, Lynda Weinman is a “poster child” for breaking from convention and letting mindset guide strategy.

1) “Yes, we can.” Where big companies “stick to their knitting,” entrepreneurs expand the knitting kit. Mullins recounts how Brazilian founder Arnold Correia repeatedly reinvented his events business, Atmo Digital, by saying “Yes, we can” to customer requests he had never tackled.

When a client with 260 stores wanted live training via satellite, he figured it out. Later, when Walmart asked for screens on the sales floor to run aisle-level ads, he delivered.

Correia “reinvented his business, fundamentally, four different times” because that was the reflex.

2) Problem-first, not product-first. Corporate brands tweak features and call it “new, improved.” Entrepreneurs hunt for stubborn pain. Engineer Jonathan Thorne noticed surgical forceps “stick to human tissue.”

He developed a silver-nickel alloy to solve the problem. Plastic surgeons were a start, but neurosurgeons—where precision is life-or-death—had an even bigger need.

Thorne built a business that was eventually sold to Stryker because he “focused on solving problems, not on thinking about products.”

3) Think narrow, not broad. Big companies want markets that “move the needle.” Founders earn the right to go broad by winning a niche.

From niche to global: Nike’s runner-first origin story to show how narrow focus can scale.

Phil Knight and coach Bill Bowerman designed shoes for elite distance runners who trained on dirt roads, not sprinters’ tracks. Better lateral stability, a wider footbed, more cushioning, less weight.

Once Nike mastered building specifically for that narrow target and got athletes to adopt, the playbook generalized to tennis and basketball.

The narrow focus became a global franchise.

4) Ask for the cash, ride the float. In the enterprise world, cash piles up for buybacks. In startups, cash is oxygen. When Elon Musk joined Tesla, the team tested demand first.

A California road show targeted people who cared about the environment, had means, and wanted the next big thing in the driveway.

They sold 100 Roadsters at $100,000 dollars each, “cash on the barrelhead, paid tonight.” Years later, nearly half a million people placed $1,000 dollar deposits for the Model 3.

Customer cash as oxygen: Tesla’s early deposits that funded engineering before production.

“Half a billion dollars, in the bank,” Mullins notes, before the first unit shipped. Prepayments and deposits can finance the future.

5) Beg, borrow, but “please, please don’t steal.” Founders should control what is distinctive and borrow what is not. Tristram and Rebecca Mayhew built Go Ape, a treetop adventure company, by partnering with the UK Forestry Commission.

They “borrowed the trees,” the loos, the parking lots, and put their kit on the trunks. The result: dozens of sites across the UK and beyond, achieved by renting assets instead of owning them.

6) Do not ask for permission when rules are outdated. Inside big firms every new idea goes to legal first. Entrepreneurs “just get on with it,” especially when regulations are ambiguous or were never designed for digital possibilities.

Break the rules to build smarter. Mullins shares 6 game-changing mindsets every entrepreneur needs. (Source: Ted YouTube)

Mullins cites Uber’s early play in San Francisco.

He is candid that some of Uber’s choices were “unethical” or “probably illegal,” yet the core lesson remains; progress often starts where permission is unlikely.

Mullins closes with four questions that double as a founder’s mirror. “Which of these mindsets are embodied in you today?”

“Which of the others can you learn?” “Can you teach these to somebody you work with?” And most urgently: “Is there a challenge you face today for which one of these mindsets might help you get beyond the roadblocks?”

The thread through all six ideas is practical courage. Say “Yes, we can” when a real customer asks.

Start with a painful problem. Dominate a narrow beachhead. Fund progress with customer cash.

Borrow non-core assets. Move when the rulebook is silent. For founders who are navigating resource constraints and moving targets, Mullins’ counter-conventional playbook is not rebellion for its own sake.

It is a disciplined way to build momentum, one bold, problem-anchored decision at a time. Watch the talk, pick one mindset, and put it to work before the week ends.

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ABOUT SPEAKER

John Mullins is an Associate Professor of Management Practice in Marketing and Entrepreneurship at London Business School. He has an MBA from Stanford and PhD from the University of Minnesota, with 20 years of entrepreneurial and executive experience. He is also the Author of The New Business Road Test and The Customer-Funded Business, and a global speaker on opportunity assessment and growth.