The 'Add A Zero' Heuristic

"If you want to improve the speed of a company, then make faster decisions." — Brian Chesky

What It Is

A mental model for goal setting where leaders arbitrarily increase the target by 10x (add a zero) to force the team to abandon current processes and use first-principles thinking.

When To Use

• Annual planning or kick-offs for major initiatives
• Team is defaulting to safe, low-impact optimization work
• Current processes mathematically cannot achieve the required scale
• Need to break incrementalism and inspire breakthrough thinking

Core Principles

1. Force a Process Break

If the goal is 10x higher, the current way of working is mathematically impossible. The team must invent a new way.

2. First Principles Thinking

Break the problem down to its fundamental components to reconstruct a solution that supports scale.

3. See Potential in People

Use the ambitious goal to signal belief in the team's capability, not just as a demand for more hours.

4. Pace Setting

Use the expanded goal to drive decision velocity. "Can we decide this now?" instead of "Circle back next week."

How To Apply

STEP 1: State Current Target
└── "We need to acquire 10,000 new hosts this quarter"

STEP 2: Add a Zero
└── "What if we needed to acquire 100,000?"

STEP 3: List Why Current Process Fails
└── "Manual outreach can't scale to 100K"
└── "Current funnel conversion is too slow"

STEP 4: Brainstorm New Approaches
└── "What would we need to build?"
└── "What partnerships would enable this?"
└── "What constraints can we remove?"

STEP 5: Extract Feasible Innovations
└── Apply breakthrough ideas to original target

Common Mistakes

❌ Simply demanding 10x results without allowing the team to change constraints

❌ Using this as a pressure tactic rather than a thinking exercise

❌ Applying it to tasks where incremental improvement is actually the right approach

Real-World Example

The internal Airbnb mantra of "Add a zero" which pushes teams to rethink how they acquire hosts or manage support tickets at a fundamentally different scale.

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Source: Brian Chesky, Lenny's Podcast