The Hard Math of Breakout Years
Higher probabilities are achieved by lengthening your time horizon
🔮 We’re already seeing a lot of predictions for next year.1
Will it be the year Sotol finally breaks through?
Will 2026 finally be the “year of rum?”
Will Calvados have its moment?
There’s a low likelihood that 2026 will be “The Year of X.” 🗓️
That’s just the hard math. The probability isn’t great.
But there is a much higher chance that at some undetermined point in the future, the category you are betting on will finally have its time.
This demands a shift from betting on “if” to preparing for “when.”
Design your business accordingly: prioritize sustainable growth and operational excellence over chasing a single year’s hype cycle.
Slow and steady wins the race when you’re building brand and a category for the long haul. 🐢>🐇
Many are non-educated guesses, unrealistic hopes, or fretful wishes.
Generally, people aren’t good at predicting things, though some are better than others. For more on the topic of making better predictions, check out Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner, The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don’t by Nate Silver, and Everything Is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World by Tom Chivers.
Solid framing on the probabilty trap. The distinction between point predictions and time-extended probabilities is kinda underrated in brand strategy. What makes this work in practive though is having the internal patienc to build while everyone's chasing the next hype window. That operational excellence baseline gets ignored when everyones fixated on breakthrough timing.