Posts in Business Strategy
How to Stop Customers from Fixating on Price

At a consumer products company we’re familiar with, no one on the senior team would ever refer to the company’s products as “commodities.” Managers there know what the competition has to offer, and they know their goods are different. They can name the distinctive features and explain their value—and they can tell you how much they’ve spent on innovation to keep that edge.

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What Airbnb Understands About Customers’ “Jobs to Be Done”

On a recent business trip to London, I surprised the conference organizers by turning down the opportunity to stay at the posh hotel hosting the conference in favor of a rather modest Airbnb flat. The hotel was clearly much more luxurious. The flat would require me to take the tube or an Uber to the event. Who in their right mind would make such a choice?

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Lessons Learned©: Westfield Corporation (Adapt from other industries)

It was reported yesterday that Westfield Corporation, which operates 32 large U.S. malls is looking to startups to spur innovation. They are concerned with the perception that online retailers are capturing the eyes (and pocketbooks) of consumers, thereby eroding their market dominance and ultimately profits.

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Lessons Learned©: Twitter (Failing to recognize your importance)

According to a recent WSJ article, Twitter has 313 million monthly active users, but its “total addressable audience” is 800 million (and possible much larger if you include who see tweets outside Twitter’s website or apps, or even every news source that simply cites and/or quotes a tweet.)

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Rethinking Authentication, Revamping the Business

IP authentication is the most important mechanism for authorizing access to licensed e-resources. Substantial business and policy issues for libraries and publishers alike connect up to IP authentication. Today, there is growing interest in eliminating IP authentication, so it is timely to examine the implications if we were soon to see its end.

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Bitcoin: A Solution to Publisher Authentication and Usage Accounting

Until recently, I’ve considered Bitcoin to be a shady digital currency that facilitates the activities of drug lords, arms dealers, smugglers, prostitution rings, and other nefarious activities that hide in the shadows of an open market. In recent years, however, Bitcoin, has been moving into more pedestrian and lawful activities.

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Discounting is killing online retailers. Here's how one startup is trying to fix that.

Mark Walker had two goals for his startup this year: Get its new line of clothing into as many guys' homes as possible and get them to pay full price. He would have to get creative.Walker, after all, is the CEO of JackThreads, a men's clothing site that has mainly been known for its discounted prices since it started in 2008.

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