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In management literature, Sir John Kay’s book Obliquity posits that the most complex goals are best achieved indirectly. Kay argues that the most profitable companies are rarely the ones most focused on profit. Instead, profit is the second-order (or even third-order) effect of pursuing a high-level purpose excellently.

I saw this principle in action during a conversation with Karl Rectanus, the founder of LearnPlatform (acquired by Instructure) and current CEO at Really Great Reading (RGR). Karl argues that while departments like Product, Sales, and Finance are critical, they should not be aligned around profit. They should be aligned around impact—the measurable difference made in the life of a student or leader.

“We believe that if we aligned those things around customer impact... that would give us an unfair advantage.” — Karl Rectanus

By focusing on the customer’s success (the oblique goal) instead of platform usage (the direct goal), the financial success follows. At LearnPlatform, this focus resulted in significant growth because impact acted as the “governor on scale”—the mechanism that ensures growth is sustainable and rooted in value.

The Impact Metric: Quantifying Second-Order Effects

To prevent “Impact” from becoming an empty buzzword, Karl insists on a quantitative proxy: the Impact Metric.

• First-Order Effect (Usage): The customer buys and uses the platform.

• Second-Order Effect (The Oblique Goal): The customer achieves their ultimate objective (e.g., improved literacy).

• Third-Order Effect (The Result): The business achieves financial scale and sustainability.

For LearnPlatform, the metric was “decisions made.” They didn’t just measure minutes spent on the system; they measured how many data-informed decisions educators were making. When this metric became the North Star:

• Sales stopped asking for “purple buttons” and started asking for features that drive administrator and educator decisions.

• Product prioritized the “decision engine” over secondary features.

• Trust was built because the company was obsessed with outcomes, not just subscription fees.

Front-Line Leadership: Rectanus meets Musk

Despite their different industries, there is a striking parallel between Karl’s leadership and the philosophy described in Erik Jorgensen’s The Book of Elon Musk. Their approach to “presence” is identical.

Karl emphasizes that you cannot have quality time without quantity time. A leader must be present to understand ground-level challenges. This mirrors Musk’s “sleeping in the factory” era at Tesla and SpaceX. In both cases, the leader’s job is to serve the team by identifying and removing barriers.

Karl calls this conviction. You can fake confidence, but you cannot fake the conviction that comes from being “in the dirt” with your team, seeing the impact of your product first-hand.

The Feedback Loop: Outcomes Over Content

In the current EdTech landscape, the “answer” isn’t just selling content or platforms; it’s the feedback loop of learning, motivation, and data.

This is the ultimate second-order effect. If you focus solely on content consumption, you become a commodity and risk becoming irrelevant. If you focus on the learner’s success, you are a partner.

This is a shift that major platforms like Udemy (which acquired my last company) and Coursera are navigating. Having seen this from the inside, it is clear that minutes watched does not equal learning outcomes. As the market matures, the industry’s value will shift from content libraries to verified impact. Karl is now applying this principle at RGR, the first literacy outcomes company, where the goal isn’t to sell reading programs, but to improve the trajectory of U.S. literacy rates.

The Takeaway

Whether you are building a rocket or a reading platform, alignment comes from looking past the product to the impact. When you measure second-order effects, your team becomes more purpose-driven and starts working for a mission.

Karl suggests that “Impact for Scale” provides an unfair advantage in today’s environment. Looking at your own organization: What is your Impact Metric? What is the one data point that gets everyone excited about the mission?

These are the same themes we'll be exploring with a small group of CEOs, investors, and operators at the StartEd CEO Summit at EdTech Week 2026.

If this is relevant to what you're building, you can learn more or request an invite here.