Los del Río had a global smash, real distribution, and a royalties machine that still pays today. What they never had was a second act. Nothing was built on top of the hit. In 2026 they are exactly what they were in 1996: the people who recorded Macarena.

A hit is an event. A business needs a loop – a first line that funds a second line, structurally different from the first, that compounds back into it. Without that loop, you’re a hit machine. The hit machine runs until the audience moves. Then you don’t.

Every business reinvests its winnings in one of three ways. I call these the MAD Rules of Reinvestment.

The three rules

  • More – reinvesting in more of the same. The next album, the next territory, the next feature release. Same line, bigger volume.
  • Adjacent – reinvesting next to the existing line. A new SKU, a similar customer, identical underlying logic. The Apple Watch beside the iPhone.
  • Different – something structurally new. A revenue line that didn’t exist before, that transforms the business and compounds back into the original lines.

More and Adjacent are fine. Often profitable. Neither builds a business that compounds.

Only Different does.

The trap

Adjacent is the most dangerous move of the three – because it masquerades as Different.

Both feel like building. Both pay the rent. Both let you tell the board you’re diversifying. The test is whether anything structurally new is being created. A new SKU running on the old logic is Adjacent, no matter how innovative it feels from inside the building.

Apple shows what passing the test looks like. They didn’t just sell more iPhones (More) or add the Watch (Adjacent). They built Services – Music, TV+, Pay, Care. Each one stands alone. Each one pulls customers deeper into the ecosystem. Hardware drives Services; Services lock in Hardware.

That loop is the point. Not more product. A different engine.

Where I’ve run it myself

In 2009, the studios were terrified of piracy. Their answer was lawsuits, takedowns and copy protection – a defensive cost line bleeding money, years before streaming existed.

We asked a Different question: what does this distribution channel become if we build on it instead of fighting it? Torrents worked – cheap, fast, frictionless. The technology wasn’t the problem. The absence of a legal way to use it was.

So we built the model: legal distribution over torrents with advertising baked in, and offered the studios a 70% split of revenue generated from content they were currently paying lawyers to defend. Disney, Fox and others signed on. A cost line became a revenue line.

That’s a Different move. The full story – including how a Ricky Gervais voicemail nearly changed everything – is in the writing.

The question that matters

Standard consulting asks how to make your More bigger. Run the funnel harder. Tighten conversion. Useful – but your existing team could probably do it.

The better question: where’s your Different?

Most operating businesses are sitting on at least one Different opportunity in plain sight. Years of infrastructure, customer relationships, data and brand permission – all packaged into a single revenue line. The second line is in the room. Nobody’s named it yet.