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.
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
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.