Working Backwards

The Hotpot | April 2026 | By Lisanne

5.4

Triangl didn’t wait for a phone call to get Kendall Jenner wearing their bikinis in 2016.

They asked themselves a better question: What needs to happen for Kendall to notice us?

They understood a direct pitch would likely fail—but a trusted friend’s recommendation could break through.

So they worked backwards.

Instead of chasing attention, they focused on proximity. Getting their bikinis into the wardrobes of the friends around her.

When something appears repeatedly in the right social environment, it stops feeling like marketing and starts feeling like something you must have.

So without budget, the brand found a clever way to get their product to appear more often around Kendall for free—by increasing how many times she naturally encountered it in her everyday life.

It’s similar to how Steven Bartlett landed an interview with Kamala Harris for his podcast. Steven didn’t wake up one day and get a call from the White House.

He built toward it, starting small, booking lesser-known political guests, then moving up to bigger names like ​Boris Johnson​. By the time Kamala Harris agreed to sit down for the interview, it wasn’t a surprise—it was the next inevitable milestone in the sequence.

The pattern is simple: credibility compounds.
Each step lowers resistance for the next.

This is the transition from relying on chance to building the conditions that make those outcomes unavoidable. 

Many people operate on probability, hoping that if they knock on enough doors, the dice will eventually land in their favor.

But effective builders think in sequences. They go from asking, “How do I get an interview with the former Vice President?” to, “What level of social proof makes her team say yes?”

And then they build backwards until it is.

Obstacles like limited budgets or lack of authority in the field are often just opportunities to find smarter ways.

If we want the door to open, shift focus from knocking to creating a space people find credible enough to enter.

Thanks for reading! The question of today:

What has to happen before you get that person to say yes?

Let me know in the comments!

Curious to see more reflections like this? Click through to see the rest of the series on success. I’d love to hear what resonates with you.