Timing is Everything

Timing is everything. You’ve likely heard this said many times before, but a clear explanation of why is rarely forthcoming. And, since timing is so important, how can you identify and take advantage of good timing? New opportunities typically arise because of new innovation that either inspires or enables others to enter a market. With […]

Creating New Value

Why is it that some products take off while others fall flat? There are many tactical reasons we can point to such as timing, competition, or product-market fit. Fundamentally though, there is one consistent truth regardless of the reason we may determine: some products create value for the market they’re serving, and some simply do […]

Evaluating Market Dynamics

How do you know whether a product idea is going to succeed if you build it and take it to market?  If you’ve ever been part of a startup, or if your organization has launched a new products, you know how precarious the effort can be. Sure, there is Lean methodology for discovering product-market fit, […]

Technology Alone Is Not a Strategy

 “As information technology’s power and ubiquity have grown, its strategic importance has diminished. The way you approach IT investment and management will need to change dramatically … It is difficult to imagine a more perfect commodity than a byte of data – endlessly and perfectly reproducible at virtually no cost.” ~ Nicholas Carr I was […]

Product Innovation Isn’t Everything

This article was originally posted on Inc.com. How was Starbucks able to build an empire in just 35 years by charging premium prices for what is essentially a commodity? The coffee purveyor’s legions of loyal patrons seem to find significant value in what it offers, to the point that it has become one of America’s […]

Adapt or Die: The New Technology Landscape

This article was originally posted on Inc.com. A decade ago, building a website was difficult and expensive. WordPress didn’t exist, nor did the tens of thousands of free plugins and low-cost design themes that can be installed at the click of a button. Today, when someone creates a “brochureware” website or blog, there’s a good […]

Network Effects

Metcalfe’s Law states that the power of a network is proportional to the square of the number of users connected to that network.  It was originally calculated in the 1980s by George Glider regarding telecommunications networks and later attributed to Robert Metcalfe.  It has been referenced extensively for social networking sites during the web 2.0 […]

7 Business Model Personalities

This article was originally posted on Inc.com. A well-defined business model should clearly articulate your function in the market, including how you make money, what inputs you depend upon, who your target customers are, and what value you are creating for them. It is a structural representation of how your business functions that concisely articulates […]