Flywheel models how products keep improving and how it drives company growth. It's a way of showing how both the company and the customer benefit.

What Is Easy to Get Wrong?

No Causality

Putting together the flywheel starts with honesty. Do you really know what drives what? How do you know that? Is there causality or are you just drawing random arrows?

Non-Important Causality

Just because there's causality, doesn't mean it's core to what's driving your business.

Examples

Amazon

The most famous flywheel is probably the one scribbled down on a napkin by Jeff Bezos when he was starting Amazon.

Once you know the pieces that drive your startup's growth, you can focus solely on those pieces.

Note that within this context, it makes perfect sense for Amazon to also include third-party sellers in their marketplace. What otherwise would have seemed like a profit-killing decision, makes perfect sense within the context of this flywheel.

Uber

Again, this model shows how customers benefit (lower prices, faster pickups, more geo coverage), how drivers benefit (less driver downtime) and how Uber benefits (more demand, more drivers).

Additional Reading

The amazing Flywheel Effect

Do you want a business that accelerates and grows almost by itself? The good news is that there is something that works like that - it is called the Flywheel Effect. The concept of the Flywheel Effect was termed by Jim Collins in his book "Good to Great".

medium.com

Turning the Flywheel: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great (Good to Great, 6)

Turning the Flywheel: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great (Good to Great, 6) [Collins, Jim] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Turning the Flywheel: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great (Good to Great, 6)

www.amazon.com