Change the oil change business

I recently got an oil change at one of those quick-change places– you know, the ones that smell like burnt coffee? It got me thinking– this is a market that will exist for the foreseeable future. It’s also a commodity market– they all compete...

2 Strategies To Exploit Second-Order Effects

I predict failure (compared to revenue from previous versions): Rock Band 3 uses “real” guitar and keyboard. Guitar Hero worked because it was just hard enough to appeal to everyone who always wished they’d learned guitar, as well as all the people...

3 Ways to Use Scarcity As A Strategy In A Digital World

The Internet changes everything. Also: water is wet, and Conan O’Brien is ridiculously tall. Seriously, if you haven’t realized that yet, just go back to living in your cave. If your product can be turned into ones and zeroes, your existing business model...

A Tale of Two Strategies: Ping and Kindle Web

Ping is Apple’s social network built on top of iTunes. iTunes, of course, is the biggest music store in the universe. Kindle for the Web is Amazon’s latest addition to their market-dominating eBook reader line. Amazon sells lots of books. Both Ping and...
The General and the Farmer

The General and the Farmer

I read “The Secret Sauce: Growing a Company by Word of Mouth” over on Brains On Fire  and it got me thinking about the idea of “strategy” more generally. Strategy is a military word. It’s the “art of a general.” The idea is to...