The test

Every decision a leader makes is an investment.

Not every investment involves money. Some involve time. Some involve trust. Some involve patience. Some involve the willingness to build something whose return will not be visible for years. The question is never whether to invest. The question is always where, when and how much.

Before any investment, ask one question. Can you see the return before you spend? Not guarantee it. Not model it precisely. But see it. If you can clearly visualise what changes after the investment, and that change is worth more than the cost, invest. If you cannot see the return, do not invest.

Then ask the second question. Would you invest in this if it was your own money or time? Not the company's money. Not the budget allocation. Yours. The answer to that question cuts through every justification, every political pressure and every sunk cost argument. If the honest answer is no, the investment is wrong.

This test applies to every type of investment. Capital expenditure. People development. Brand building. Relationship investment. Time allocation. The test is always the same. See the return first. Then spend.

Key Takeaway: The investment test has two questions. Can you see the return before you spend? Would you invest if it was your own money or time? If both answers are yes, invest. If either answer is no, stop.

Invest when you can see the return. Not before.

Think Simple · Leadership · Here is How to Think · Vol 2: The Leader · Philosophy 1: Invest · Section: The test

MarvinPro | November 2025

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What to invest in

The investment types available to a leader go well beyond capital and budget. Every resource a leader controls is an investment vehicle. Time. Attention. Relationships. Knowledge. Trust. Each of these compounds when invested deliberately and depreciates when neglected.

Invest in the brand. Brand is trust made visible. It is what people think when they hear your name before you walk into the room, before they open your proposal, before they decide whether to give you their business or their time. Brand investment compounds invisibly for years and pays back in ways that cannot be predicted or modelled. Brand is not what you say about yourself. It is what others say when you are not in the room.

Invest in quality. Brand without quality is noise. Quality without brand is invisible. You need both, but quality comes first. Quality investment is not a department. It is a standard that every person in the organisation either upholds or erodes in every decision, every deliverable, every interaction.

Invest in people. People are the only investment that thinks for itself. Capital depreciates. Technology becomes obsolete. Processes need updating. People, when invested in deliberately, grow. Their capability compounds. Their knowledge deepens. Their loyalty strengthens. The leader who invests in developing people builds a team that delivers results the organisation chart cannot explain.

Invest in relationships. Relationships built under pressure are transactional. Relationships built in the quiet are genuine. The leader who invests in relationships before they need them builds a network that returns value in ways that cannot be scheduled or predicted. These returns arrive unexpectedly and are worth more than any planned campaign.

Invest in knowledge. Every domain you enter without prior knowledge is an investment opportunity. The leader who takes the time to understand a new domain deeply, before being asked, before it becomes urgent, arrives ahead of every other candidate when the domain becomes critical. The return on knowledge investment is the ability to act when others are still trying to understand.

Invest in removing ceilings. Every leader has a ceiling, the point at which tools, environment, structure or process limits what they can deliver. When the ceiling is real, when you can feel the limitation reducing your output every day, the return on removing it is immediate and compounding. A leader once invested nearly 9,000 euros of personal funds in professional hardware over several years. Not because the organisation required it. Because the ceiling was real and the return was clear. The result was three times the output of peers operating with standard equipment. Nobody reimbursed the decision. The output did.

Key Takeaway: The investment types available to a leader extend far beyond capital. Brand, quality, people, relationships, knowledge and capability ceilings are all investment vehicles. Each compounds when invested deliberately and depreciates when neglected.

People are the only investment that thinks for itself.

Think Simple · Leadership · Here is How to Think · Vol 2: The Leader · Philosophy 1: Invest · Section: What to invest in

MarvinPro | November 2025

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The four business models

There is no single right investment sequence for every business. The right model depends on the product, the market and the moment. Understanding which model you are operating, and choosing it deliberately, is one of the most important strategic decisions a leader makes.

Brand first, quality on release. Build the brand before the product is complete. Create anticipation. Generate demand before supply exists. Then release only when the quality meets the promise the brand has already made. This is the highest risk and highest reward model. The brand creates expectation. The quality must deliver on it completely. The critical variable is your quality readiness number. Some products can release at 70% quality readiness and iterate publicly. Others require 95% before a single unit reaches a customer. The price of a premium product is not what it costs to manufacture. It is what it cost to learn how to make it. The most powerful brands are built over decades, not campaigns.

Quality first, brand after. Build something excellent before announcing it. Let the quality speak before the brand amplifies it. Invest in brand only when the quality is proven and the promise can be kept without risk. This model protects the brand from premature claims. It is slower to market but more sustainable. The brand, when it comes, is built on evidence, not aspiration.

Volume first, quality later. Enter the market at scale and low cost. Build volume. Reach the targets that justify quality investment. Improve the product when the revenue base supports it. Brand when the quality justifies it. This model requires discipline. Volume is not a permanent substitute for quality. It is a bridge to it.

Parallel. Volume and quality simultaneously. Two products. Two markets. One operational base. The volume product funds the operation. The quality product builds the brand. Both benefit from the same knowledge, the same supply chain, the same people. This model requires the most organisational sophistication but it is the most resilient. When the volume market shifts, the quality product holds. When the quality product needs time, the volume product funds it.

Key Takeaway: The business model determines the investment sequence. Brand first requires quality readiness before release. Quality first requires patience before brand. Volume first requires discipline before quality. Parallel requires sophistication across both. Choose the model deliberately. Executing the wrong model correctly produces the wrong outcome.

The most powerful brands are built over decades, not campaigns.

Think Simple · Leadership · Here is How to Think · Vol 2: The Leader · Philosophy 1: Invest · Section: The four business models

MarvinPro | November 2025

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The timing dimension

The right investment made at the wrong time produces the wrong result.

Too early, the market is not ready, the quality is not there, the organisation cannot absorb the change. The investment is wasted not because it was wrong but because the conditions that would have made it successful did not yet exist. Too late, the competitor has moved, the customer has decided, the window has closed. The investment is wasted not because it was wrong but because the moment that would have made it valuable has passed.

The art of investment is not just knowing what to invest in. It is knowing when. This requires the same pattern recognition that underlies prediction. The leader who understands their market, their product and their organisation deeply enough to see the window before it opens and to close before it closes is operating at the highest level of investment thinking.

Timing without quality damages the brand. A brand that promises more than the quality delivers at launch loses trust that takes years to rebuild. Quality without timing loses the market. A product that arrives after the moment has passed finds a market that has already made its decision. The art is knowing your number, the point at which quality is sufficient to justify the timing, and timing is right to justify the release.

Sales investment is the most immediately understood at board level and the most commonly prioritised at the expense of everything else. Sales investment without brand investment produces transactions without loyalty. Sales investment without quality investment produces customers without retention. Sales investment without people investment produces targets without sustainability. The board that approves only sales investment is optimising one variable in a system of many. The timing of each investment type must be coordinated, not sequenced by urgency alone.

Key Takeaway: Timing is the dimension of investment that most organisations get wrong. Too early wastes the investment. Too late misses the window. The leader who can see the right moment for each type of investment, across brand, quality, people, relationships and knowledge, builds something that compounds across every market cycle.

Timing without quality damages the brand. Quality without timing loses the market. The art is knowing your number.

Think Simple · Leadership · Here is How to Think · Vol 2: The Leader · Philosophy 1: Invest · Section: The timing dimension

MarvinPro | November 2025

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A real example

In a large organisation, a leader identified that the tools available to their team were creating a ceiling on output. The standard equipment provided was adequate for the minimum standard of work. It was not adequate for the standard the leader held personally or wanted to hold for the team.

The organisation had no budget for upgraded equipment. The request had been made and declined. The business case had been presented and deprioritised. The ceiling was real and the organisation had chosen not to remove it.

The leader made a different calculation. The ceiling was costing more in lost output than the investment required to remove it. The organisation would not fund the removal. The leader funded it personally, investing nearly 9,000 euros in professional hardware over several years.

The return was immediate and compounding. Output that had been constrained by the tools became unconstrained. The quality of the work increased. The speed of delivery increased. The capability to take on more complex work increased. The result was three times the output of peers operating on standard equipment.

Nobody reimbursed the decision. Nobody was asked to. The investment was made because the return was visible before the spend. The test had been applied. The answer was clear. The investment was made.

This is also what it looks like to invest in yourself when the organisation will not. The leader who waits for the organisation to remove their ceiling will wait longer than the leader who removes it themselves. The return does not go to the organisation. It goes to the leader, in the form of capability that no restructure, no redundancy and no reorg can take away.

Nobody reimbursed the decision. The output did.

Think Simple · Leadership · Here is How to Think · Vol 2: The Leader · Philosophy 1: Invest · A real example

MarvinPro | November 2025

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Invest

Invest in the brand before the product. Invest in quality before the brand. Invest in people before the targets. Invest in relationships before you need them. Invest in knowledge before the domain becomes critical. Remove the ceiling before it limits you.

Apply the test before every investment. Can you see the return? Would you spend your own money or time? If both answers are yes, invest without hesitation. If either answer is no, stop without apology.

Choose the business model deliberately. Execute it with full commitment. Time the investment correctly. And always invest across all dimensions, not just the ones the budget cycle makes visible.

The leader who invests only where the organisation asks them to will build what the organisation designed. The leader who also invests where they can see the return, in brand, in people, in knowledge, in relationships, in removing their own ceilings, will build something the organisation chart cannot explain and no competitor can easily replicate.

Every decision a leader makes is an investment. The question is never whether to invest. The question is always where, when and how much.

Think Simple · Leadership · Here is How to Think · Vol 2: The Leader · Philosophy 1: Invest · Chapter Outcome

MarvinPro | November 2025

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