Brain Pennies: Better and Faster

The importance of Follow Through from page 46

“Any entrepreneur needs to hustle to make things happen… many people don’t know how to follow through. While they may feel passionate about their initial idea, the don’t push hard enough.”

I took two things away from this passage. One, it explains why so many businesses fail so early on. The business concept may be great but if the person behind the wheel doesn’t have the drive to push past the hard parts and to think outside the box when needed, the business is domed.

Two, this could be a great source of opportunity. Just because a business is failing doesn’t necessarily mean that the concept is flawed. It may just need to be repackaged and pushed further. The book before this passage talks about Victoria’s Secret and how the owner, Raymond, started the business with $80k barrowed from family and friends and grew it to a household multi-million-dollar brand… only to later face bankruptcy because the times had changed and Raymond wasn’t continuing to follow through. Retailer magnet, Leslie Wexner, saw the business’s value and potential and acquired it. The brand was repackaged and pushed further and is now a multi-billion-dollar brand.

Pg 154.

“…In our new era of change and interconnectedness, you don’t need to find a big idea; you can find a little idea that can be made big.”

This was a great passage and so true. If you look at the market (world of business) you can find an abundance of businesses and products that are niches of larger concepts. Those who find a niche and dominate that niche… make millions.

The Six Patterns of Opportunity

“…there are six major patterns of opportunity that are created by nearly every major breakthrough product. Thus, you can use these patterns to predict or uncover future business opportunities that will be indirectly fueled by a burgeoning megatrend associated with that product.”

If you happen to be the person who invents the wheel… great. But there is no shame in building an empire with the wheel.

1.      Convergence: Creating a winning business or product by combining multiple products, services, or trends. Includes: mixing, product integration, social integration, bringing people together, adding value through layering, drama, multifunctions, and co-branding.

2.      Divergence: Products and services designed to oppose or break free from the mainstream. This opportunity pattern extends beyond rebellion to include personalization, customization, status, and luxury.

3.      Cyclicality: Predictably, recurring, opportunities. Includes: retro, nostalgia, economic cycles, seasonality, generational, patterns, and repetitive cycles.

4.      Redirection: The art of channeling the power of a trend, behavior, or demonstration of need instead of fighting it. Includes: refocusing, reprioritizing, rationalizing, reversing, and gamifying.

5.      Reduction: Simplifying a business concept or focusing it more on a specific idea. Includes: specialization, removing layers and steps, fractioning, crowd-sourcing, subscriptions, localization, and efficiency.

6.      Acceleration: identifying a critical feature of a business or product and dramatically enhancing that element. Includes: perfection, aspirational positioning, exaggerated features, and reimagined solutions.

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