Three-Horizon Resource Allocation Shift
Express multi-year strategy as a yearly percentage split of resources across three horizons.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 93%
Rather than describing a long-term vision qualitatively, Pearl breaks Calendly's winning aspiration into three horizons and then allocates a hard percentage of product resources to each, re-set annually. The allocation is the strategy: it is auditable, it forces trade-offs, and it makes 'we're moving upmarket' a number instead of a sentiment. Horizon 3 can legitimately hold zero percent for years while still being on the map.
Origin
Pearl's operating practice at Calendly, sitting downstream of the Playing to Win strategy cascade (Lafley & Martin). The three-horizons concept traces to McKinsey's Three Horizons of Growth; Pearl's specific contribution is the year-over-year percentage-shift discipline tied to each horizon.
Core principles
- 01A horizon with no percentage attached is a wish, not a plan.
- 02Zero percent is a valid, honest allocation for a horizon you know is coming but are not ready to fund.
- 03The shift across years — not the split in any single year — is what communicates strategic direction.
- 04The horizon you built the company on will get scaled back; plan the decline deliberately rather than letting it decay.
How to run it
- 1
Define the winning aspiration and split it into three horizons
Horizon 1 is the current core (Calendly: best horizontal scheduling automation platform). Horizon 2 is the next growth curve (teams, departments, verticals). Horizon 3 is the far future.
Pro tip Let real customer pull, not internal ambition, tell you what Horizon 2 is — Calendly's customers pulled them toward teams before the company chose it.
- 2
Set this year's percentage split
Assign an explicit percentage of product and engineering resources to each horizon for the year. Calendly year one: 70% Horizon 1, 30% Horizon 2, 0% Horizon 3.
Watch out Do not fund Horizon 3 out of FOMO. Calendly deliberately kept it at zero for two straight years while knowing where it was headed.
- 3
Re-cut the split every year and let it drift
Calendly year two: 50/50/0. Year three: 30% Horizon 1, 60% Horizon 2, 10% Horizon 3. The drift is the visible record of the company moving up-market.
Pro tip Publish the split alongside the annual OKRs so teams can see why their area is growing or shrinking.
Watch out Shrinking Horizon 1 is the moment focus becomes painful — this is where you must make real trade-off decisions.
- 4
Feed the roadmap from the split
Allocate the actual work and headcount so that the percentage of effort matches the declared split. Prioritization then becomes a matter of filling each horizon's budget with the highest-value items for the target persona.
Watch out If the declared split and the actual sprint content diverge, the split is theatre.
In the wild
Under the aspiration of becoming the best place to schedule, prepare for, and follow up on external meetings, Calendly went 70/30/0 in year one, 50/50/0 in year two, and roughly 30/60/10 in year three — deliberately scaling back the horizontal core that built the company in order to deepen support for teams, departments, and verticals.
→ The shift from broad horizontal platform to deeper investment in teams was executed as a funded plan rather than an aspiration, with the sales-led motion growing to about 20% of ARR and becoming the fastest-growing segment.
Common mistakes
Sprinkling resources across all three horizons from day one
Spreading thin makes every horizon under-resourced. Calendly's zero-percent Horizon 3 for two years is the point: naming a future bet does not obligate you to fund it yet.
Never shrinking Horizon 1
The core that made you successful will absorb all available capacity if you let it. Without an explicit cut to Horizon 1, the next growth curve never gets staffed.
Is it for you?
Best for
Product and exec leaders at a scaled company that needs to fund a second growth curve while its original viral or horizontal engine is still delivering most of the revenue.
Not ideal for
Small teams with a single product bet where the split would just be 100/0/0 and the ceremony adds nothing.
From the transcript
“have the sort of vision Our Winning aspiration to become the best place to schedule prepare for and follow up on your external meetings and…”
“went to like a 50 50 split between Horizon 1 and Horizon 2 but still no explicit investments in Horizon 3 and then you know…”
From the episode
Behind the scenes of Calendly’s rapid growth
Annie Pearl (CPO)