Right to Win via Permission to Play
Before building, ask if it's logical that YOU built it — and whether you have a route to market.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 94%
A gate for deciding which products to build in an era where anyone can build anything. Two questions decide whether a build earns an outsized return: do customers find it logical that your company (not another) built this, and do you have a route to market to reach mass-scale distribution? If either answer is no, the build burns money regardless of product quality.
Origin
Jeetu Patel developed this with Aaron Levy, his former boss at Box; Levy credits it as reshaping how he thinks about strategy. Patel now applies it at Cisco.
Core principles
- 01Building an amazing product does not by itself get it to mass-scale distribution.
- 02Permission to play = it is logical to customers that your company built this, given your DNA and history.
- 03Right to win = permission to play plus a route to market.
- 04When both hold, product dollars return outsized results; when they don't, sales and product teams blame each other.
- 05As building gets cheaper and code becomes abundant, 'why will WE win here' becomes the decisive lever.
How to run it
- 1
Test permission to play
Ask: is it logical for customers that our company built this, versus another company? If it's a natural extension of what you've credibly done, you have permission.
Pro tip Cisco networking GPUs for AI is not far-fetched because they networked non-AI infrastructure for 40 years — the extension reads as natural.
Watch out 'Can we do it?' is the wrong question — of course you can. The question is whether it's logical that you're the one who does.
- 2
Test the route to market
Confirm you have a distribution channel within your DNA to take the product to mass scale.
Watch out Cisco avoids B2C tech precisely because it lacks a consumer distribution channel in its DNA, no matter how buildable the product is.
- 3
Default to no and concentrate calories
Say no to 90-99% of new-market ideas so you can expend focused effort where you have the right to win.
Pro tip Focused caloric expenditure yields disproportionate, outsized results; dissipated effort means nothing gets enough girth to break through.
Watch out Being seduced by 'this market is doing so well, let's just enter it' spreads effort thin and starves the areas where you'd actually win.
In the wild
Cisco decided to connect and secure GPUs for AI training clusters — a natural extension of 40 years networking non-AI infrastructure, so customers find it logical Cisco does it.
→ Permission to play plus route to market gave the AI infrastructure bet an outsized return.
Patel says no to consumer-tech ideas at Cisco because there's no consumer distribution channel in the company's DNA and no permission to play there.
→ Calories stay concentrated on infrastructure where Cisco operates from a position of strength.
Common mistakes
Confusing capability with permission
Teams argue 'of course we can build it,' but capability is not the test — if customers don't find it logical that you're the builder and you have no route to market, the spend returns little.
Chasing every hot market
Entering markets just because they're growing dissipates your caloric burn across too many areas, so none gets enough concentrated effort to break through.
Is it for you?
Best for
Product and corporate strategy leaders at established companies deciding which new categories to enter.
Not ideal for
Early-stage founders with no existing brand or distribution, for whom 'permission to play' hasn't been earned yet and everything is greenfield.
From the transcript
“is it going to be logical for people that Cisco built it versus another company building it? So that's this notion of permission to play,…”
“Just by building a product that is amazing in in some area, you you don't end up actually getting it to mass scale distribution.”
“you have to be extremely selective of where you expend your calories. And that caloric expenditure is is where you know if you expend your…”
“why are we not in business to consumer tech at Cisco... because I don't think we have a distribution channel that actually is within our…”
From the episode
AI is critical for humanity’s survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution
Jeetu Patel