Do the Opposite
Study what everyone's doing not to copy it, but to find the 180 that stands out.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- —
When you want traction, study what everyone in the space is doing — not to copy their best practices, but to ask 'what is the opposite?' In every major trend there's almost always an opportunity on the other side, the 180. Markets have gravitational forces that make everything converge (product design, ad creative, strategy, tactics), so the opposite is where you stand out. Balfour stresses it's not that the opposite is guaranteed to work — it's that the opposite is a reliable place to look for new opportunity. He built Reforge this way against the MOOC trend, and used it in content, ad creative and channel strategy throughout his career.
Origin
A pattern Balfour developed across his career and blog; illustrated with Reforge's founding against the MOOC wave.
Core principles
- 01Convergence is the default; differentiation requires a deliberate 180.
- 02Study the consensus to invert it, not to imitate it.
- 03The opposite is where to look, not a guarantee it works.
- 04Winners keep flipping as others copy the new approach.
How to run it
- 1
Map the consensus
Study what everyone advertising to your audience or competing in your category is doing — creative, format, pricing, strategy.
Pro tip The goal of studying best practices is to invert them, not repeat them.
- 2
Ask 'what's the opposite?'
For each dominant norm, define the 180 and treat it as a candidate opportunity on the other side of the trend.
Watch out The opposite isn't guaranteed to work — it's a place to find opportunity, not a rule.
- 3
Ship the differentiated version
Build the opposite deliberately so you stand out against the converged norm and earn attention/CTR/performance.
- 4
Re-flip as others copy
Once people copy your approach, step back, re-read the new consensus, and flip the pendulum again.
Watch out This is a constant game, not a one-time move.
In the wild
When MOOCs (short, self-serve, low-priced, open-to-everyone) were the rage, Balfour and Andrew Chen did the exact opposite for the first growth series: small cohort, not fully online, priced high, with live components.
→ A strong first response that launched Reforge and helped pioneer cohort-based courses.
While HubSpot pumped out ~10 short articles a day, Balfour wrote low-volume, very long content, which stood out amid the noise.
→ Most of his early email subscribers came from that contrarian content.
Common mistakes
Copying best practices to fit in
Mimicking what everyone does makes you converge with the crowd and disappear instead of gaining traction.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders and marketers seeking traction in a saturated category or channel.
Not ideal for
Situations where the consensus approach is genuinely the only viable one.
From the episode
Brian Balfour: 10 lessons on career, growth, and life