1/ There are common models + frameworks appearing often in discussions of business and tech strategy. Buffett’s championing of moats. Sequoia’s why now? But, there are a few approaches I’ve stumbled upon recently that sometimes go under appreciated.
2/ ‘Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.’ h/t @whrobbins
This heuristic matters in the context of enterprise sales and positioning. As a startup, how can you establish a brand centered around stability and trust, one that “caps downside?” willrobbins.org/buying-ibm/
This heuristic matters in the context of enterprise sales and positioning. As a startup, how can you establish a brand centered around stability and trust, one that “caps downside?” willrobbins.org/buying-ibm/
3/ Reference Group Neglect is when new entrants in a market focus on their perceived skills while ignoring the abilities of competitors/incumbents and ignoring entrance failure rates. Particularly applicable in industries like healthcare and insurance
neilbendle.com/reference-grou…
neilbendle.com/reference-grou…
4/ TAM is estimated as (revenue / customer) x # of customers. This goes under fire for companies like Uber, which seemingly had a small market size. A solution could be the Bass Model, which forecasts the rate of adoption of a new technology.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bass_diff…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bass_diff…
5/ Lawyers and bankers sometimes use the Herfindahl Index, a measure of industry concentration. Tech companies (esp marketplaces) are good with fragmented industries, and this index is a useful heuristic to quantify consolidation. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herfindah…
6/ Value chains provide a framework for actors and incentives within an industry, but Profit Pools visualize profits and margins within a sector, rather than just revenue sources and relationships between suppliers and buyers.
hbr.org/1998/05/profit…
hbr.org/1998/05/profit…
