BOOKS
Strategy is a compass, not a map.
- SOURCE
- Seth Godin, This Is Strategy
- IDEA
- Strategy should guide today's decision rather than prescribe every future move.
- ARK
- This is the argument for choosing one industry at a time rather than three. A map would have us serving automotive, real estate and commercial simultaneously because the plan says so. A compass says go deep on the one where the feedback loop is fastest, and let what you learn there decide the order of the rest.
Related notes
BOOKS
Test the limit.
- SOURCE
- Seth Godin, This Is Strategy
- IDEA
- What is the ______est company in the category? Cheapest, fastest, most selective, most transparent? What are competitors structurally unwilling to do?
- ARK
- The useful version of this question is the last one. Not what could a competitor do, but what would their business model punish them for doing. A dealership cannot afford to tell you that none of its cars deserve recommending. That refusal is available to us precisely because we are not compensated for moving a specific unit.
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MyRide
BOOKS
If there is a limit, test it.
- SOURCE
- Seth Godin
- IDEA
- Categories have boundaries that everyone inside them treats as physics.
- ARK
- Most category boundaries are habits with tenure. The test is cheap: name the boundary out loud, then ask what would break if we crossed it. Usually the answer is a process, not a law.