As a source of insight for business strategy, one can discover tremendous value in the story of Suvorov’s assault and seizure of Izmail that was thought to be an unassailable fortress. Suvorov, a general-in-chief at the time, began by assuming a disguise not to be recognized. He took a shabby attire, an aged horse, and, accompanied by a single orderly, studied the fortress all round.
Next, he ordered to mock up fortifications that closely resembled Izmail for drills. His troops, shoulder to shoulder, practiced to blanket the moat with bundles of twigs, prop up ladders to quickly scale the walls where they practiced stabbing and slashing dummies. The Turkish and Russian forces were more or less equally matched; the fortress fell two and a half hours into the battle. The Russian army lost 2,000 men; the Turkish army lost 26,000 dead and 9,000 captured.
Any business venture can be approached as an unassailable fortress. Before Suvorov, Izmail had been besieged and stormed by three generals, including Prince Potemkin. What failed them? Same troops, same weaponry, same fortress…
But did they go around the fortress looking for weaknesses? Or did they drill their troops on similar fortifications? At what time and in what manner did they launch their offensive?
Suvorov first undertook a thorough and forceful two-day cannonade; the attack started at 5:30 in the morning, when the Turks had their morning prayer. And he won.
When an entrepreneur makes preparations to launch a business project, similar strategic thinking and action are indispensable.
…As I realized that retrofitting latest-series cars to build armored vehicles requires bulletproof glass of a whole new level, I decided that we could not use existing technologies. Increasing the thickness of ballistic glass by a mere millimeter made the car heavier by 50—100 kilograms, which degraded its performance and put additional load on its strained drivetrain.