Introducing The John Mayer Framework
How John Mayer's career arc/strategy translates to modern day business success
I want to take a page out of Packy McCormick’s book and bring a real world example to trends that I’ve found interesting over the years. In this case, it’s the John Mayer Framework.
John Mayer is one of the greatest guitarists of our generation, has a penchant for the blues (I’ve watched the video below hundreds of times), but also has dabbled in pop music for the larger portion of a decade. Mayer has always been a blues connoisseur, citing the influence of trailblazers like Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan, amongst others, as massively influential on him.
His first album with a major following, Room for Squares, had some of his staples such as “Your Body is a Wonderland”. But as he continued his career, he described that music as “doing less for [him]”, which inspired him to listen to more soul and blues music. Ultimately describing pop music to sometimes be “periodical” and reflecting on a certain year. Mayer described blues music as “timeless” and “visceral”, and started to push his own music in that direction.
Mayer had been described as “more historically savvy, and more ambitious than you’d guess”. His platform grew and granted him access to his idols and genre-defining artists he wanted to emulate, and he made the most of it. Mayer ended up performing with Buddy Guy, Herbie Hancock, Eric Clapton, and others. It pushed his guitar skills into the spotlight and eventually launched his career into the stratosphere.
This is the John Mayer Framework in its purest form. Mayer had ambitions that he had to sidetrack in order to achieve greatness and fulfillment. He took advantage the platform that his pop aurora provided and used it to launch his career the way he wanted to. That’s not to say he didn’t like the more pop-esque work he had done, but it didn’t speak to his soul. His changed direction resonated with him because it connected his roadmap with his vision. That’s when his career really took off in the direction he wanted it to.
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The John Mayer Framework is applicable to a lot of very successful companies, and actually tends to be an indication of industry-shapers. The classic, and perhaps most relevant, version is Tesla. That’s not to say that Elon hasn’t necessarily done this with other companies, but Tesla is the one that to me stands out the most as a disruptor (so far). And yes, I am aware that PayPal essentially created a new challenger bank and SpaceX is the first company with a successful private launch.
One of the most interesting things I’ve read in the last year was a profile on Elon by the website Wait But Why. One of the parts that stuck with me most was the Tesla “Hershey’s Kiss” Business Model. It stuck out because it reminded me of the John Mayer Framework.
Being a new entrant to an already established market like auto and trying to revolutionize the car from a technology standpoint, Tesla would have trouble catching on from a research and development perspective. R&D is very expensive anyway, but now it has to compete with existing car brands that have figured much of this out already? Tesla was in a tough spot. So Elon built his business model in the form of the Hershey’s Kiss above. To make waves, you have to do something to make sure you’re getting everything (read: revenue) out of each sale. The margins likely weren’t great, but the buzz was important and it served as a proof-of-concept that this type of product was desired. Demand was high and Elon had proved that he could solve the world’s gasoline problem in his new car, the Roadster. He passionately described anyone who believed that he was “making sports cars for rich people” to be “misinterpreting” Tesla’s mission.
That all sounds kind of familiar, right? Back to our boy, John - he felt pretty dispassionate about his early music. He felt as though his first few albums were reflective of just one moment in time, as opposed to a perpetual feeling. *nudge*
When Elon moved into step two of the model, it became more widely available to the masses, it resembled a car for the moderately wealthy more than one for the rich only. All of that R&D was remodeled and put into the next series of Tesla, the Model S. The Roadsters had successful venture capitalists and tech CEO’s lauding Tesla and hoping that everyone else would get to sample that luxury one day. The Model S flipped the Roadster on it’s head by becoming one of the highest rated cars ever in customer satisfaction, and had a much more attainable pricepoint.
It’s still shattering expectations for what a car driving experience should be, and it’s shaped into more of what Musk wants. Tesla has come closer to mastering electric range every release. Bolstering that, they added “Superchargers” across the US so that you never really had to worry about a charge.
This resembles Mayer’s expansion from pop into blues. He mixed the two, and perfected his art, with Continuum being by far his biggest success to date. Continuum’s success was largely attributable to Mayer growing his audience through earlier pop successes and sticking true to his passion for the blues.
Step three of Tesla’s business model was a car for the masses. The price-point was aimed to be sub $40,000 and would rely upon all of the previous R&D he’s worked on plus the acquisition and growth of his gigafactory (in a nutshell, the gigafactory makes it possible to create as many batteries as the rest of the entire world). The success of step three in the business model is what has launched Tesla into the stratosphere and helped grow it exponentially. The entire market landscape of electric cars has changed because of Tesla. Tesla is the leader of the entire industry in market cap and likely soon will take over revenue. Almost everyone wants one, but definitely everyone wants a share.
John Mayer is touring with members of the Grateful Dead, being featured on songs by Frank Ocean, has played with the likes of BB King, and can release whatever he feels like releasing knowing that he’ll have global appeal and he’s made his own genre-blend.
Elon Musk’s recipe for [Tesla] success has followed the John Mayer Framework to the T. Leveraging a revenue/popularity booster to make your true vision come to fruition is not only a proven way to make it in the music industry, but apparently the business world as well. Musk made his business sustainable, “recycled” his R&D work into new and improved products, and ultimately changed the landscape of the auto industry. You can count on me betting on more businesses/entrepreneurs who follow the John Mayer Framework in the future. Let me know your thoughts!
Links I found interesting:
* How Big Tech Makes Their Billions - Visual Capitalist
* 11,000-year-old mine in underwater cave surprises archaeologists
* Julian Bass’ VFX Hero Video Gets Disney Boss Bob Iger’s Attention – Deadline
* Chart: Millennials on Investing, Debt, and Banking
* Historical U.S. Stock Market Returns Over Almost 200 Years