The Business Engineer
At the intersection of business model strategy, technology, and business development, The Business Engineer is the only official newsletter of FourWeekMBA.com, the leading blog about business model strategy and business engineering. The blog reaches millions of business people each year.
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niche strategy!
Tesla was not the first to try to build a successful EV vehicle.In the mid-late 1990s, General Motors built a car called EV1. Source: RightBrainPhotography (Rick Rowen) derivative work The car was supposed to target a more significant segment of the car market.This made sense for General Motors because, as an established automaker, it made sense to look into the development of an electric vehicle, only if this would go after a large market.Yet, this turned out into a complete failure. That's...
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scaling strategies
I know I'm obsessed with scaling, but if you're in business, that's the primary domain you'll deal with daily and at a long-term strategic level. Indeed, when it comes to scaling, it'll be critical to understand its nuances, as the landscape changes everything (from product development to marketing and sales processes). But what about scaling that makes it so critical for business? Business scaling is the transformation process of a business as broader and wider market segments validate the...
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the deal which saved Apple
It was the year 1997. Apple was experiencing a sharp sales decline: Compared to 1996, the company's net sales decreased by 28% and even more compared to just a couple of years before. To understand the severity of the crisis, an article from the NY Times dated March 28th, 1996, said: Apple Computer said today that it expected to report a $700 million after-tax loss for its fiscal second quarter, a sign that the nation's third-largest personal computer maker is in even deeper financial trouble...
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niche down to scale up
Today's niche is tomorrow's mass market! In a tech-driven business world, companies can move toward market expansion by creating options to scale via niches. Thus transitional business models can be leveraged to scale further and take advantage of non-linear competition, where today's niches become tomorrow's legacy players. Let me show you the essence of a market expansion strategy! Let me show you a few key concepts to visualize and then a process to get there... Niche positioning A...
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business strategy frameworks
I have a business mantra that goes along these lines: Business strategies take years to roll out. Yet when they do, they are obvious only in hindsight. That is all but a linear process for the entrepreneurs who roll them out. Rolling out these business strategies is a painful process, which requires a lot of faith in your gut instinct, and it's all about sweat, persistence, execution, and stubbornness. And it all starts by balancing out the short and long term. This Issue Is Part of The...
Strategy Hooks
In a complex world, you don't need to choose a complex strategy to build a valuable business. That's the beauty of it. Most of it is a choice (based on factors like personal inclinations, arbitrage opportunities, market gaps, and so forth) of which hook you want to use to tackle the market. From there, it's a matter of sticking with that hook until it makes your business take off. However, the tricky part is that execution needs to be relentless, and it might take years before your vision...
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competitive analysis
There are several ways to look at the competitive landscape. However, in a digital world, the concept itself (for now) has become more fluid. Indeed, when you look at companies like Amazon, Tesla, or perhaps Google, where would you start? True, each of those companies has a leading market/industry (Tesla = electric cars, Amazon = e-commerce, Google = search), and yet when we have a closer look at what those companies do, we realize there is more to it. Indeed, as those companies operate at...
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non-linear competition
Is Tesla just a car company? Well, it depends on which angle you take. From a linear standpoint, it is. However, if you only look from that angle, you're missing many valuable insights about the development of a set of industries around EVs, which will also play a critical role in the future! Here, we want to leverage lateral thinking instead. Welcome to the fluid world! A few months back, Elon Musk pointed out something I've been saying since 2019 (a few months after Tesla had avoided...
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building an AI company
What makes up an AI business model? I put together a framework or mental model to think about AI business models straightforwardly, with a four-layered approach. AI becomes the "connector" between value and distribution, enhancing both so that we can speed up valuable feedback loops, increase product velocity, and expand distribution! This I called the Exponential Startup! You can click on the image below to get the dynamic visualization of the framework. Copyright: Gennaro Cuofano -...
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Charlie Munger's mental models
Back in November, Charlie Munger, the legendary vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffet's investing powerhouse), passed away at the age of 99, leaving a profound impact on the investing world, and not only that! Indeed, Munger dedicated his life to the discovery, development, and interiorization of a bunch of heuristics (thinking tools) which he used throughout his life to make decisions in business, along the way. Munger's mental model toolbox is part of our mental model...
At the intersection of business model strategy, technology, and business development, The Business Engineer is the only official newsletter of FourWeekMBA.com, the leading blog about business model strategy and business engineering. The blog reaches millions of business people each year.