Business
40 bites tagged Business — interview questions with model answers, and 60-second explainers.
Product Cannibalization: Eat Your Own Lunch
Product cannibalization means competing with yourself before someone else does. Apple famously did this with the iPhone, knowing it would kill the iPod. The footgun is accidentally shrinking your total market share instead of growing it with new offerings.
Repositioning: Changing Minds, Not Just Products
Repositioning changes how customers perceive your existing product. Netflix did this by moving from DVDs to streaming to meet new demand. Don't mistake it for rebranding—repositioning alters the core promise, not just the logo or colors.
Category Design: Don't Compete, Create the Game
Instead of fighting for a slice of the pie, bake a new one. Category design creates a new market you can dominate, rather than competing in an existing one. The footgun is thinking a new feature makes a new category; it requires teaching the market.
Platform Envelopment: Eat or Be Eaten
Platform envelopment is when a large platform absorbs a competitor's market by bundling its core features, often for free. This is common in tech, like an OS adding a feature that makes a standalone app obsolete.
BCG Growth-Share Matrix: A Map for Your Product Portfolio
The BCG Matrix plots products on a 2x2 grid of market growth vs. market share to decide where to invest. It's used to categorize products as Stars, Cash Cows, Question Marks, or Dogs. The footgun is treating it as a static, predictive tool.
Unit Economics: Is Each Customer Profitable?
Unit economics asks if you make or lose money on a single customer or sale. It's used in SaaS to compare customer lifetime value (LTV) to acquisition cost (CAC). The footgun is defining the 'unit' poorly, hiding that each new customer costs you money.
Cost-Plus Pricing: Set Price Based on Cost, Not Value
Cost-plus pricing sets a product's price by adding a fixed percentage markup to its unit cost. It's common in government contracts where costs are clear. The footgun is that it ignores what customers are willing to pay, leaving money on the table.
Business Model Canvas: Your Business on a Single Page
The Business Model Canvas puts your entire business strategy onto a single page, showing how value, customers, and money connect. It's used by startups to map out a plan or by established companies to launch new products.
Niche Market Strategy: Big Wins in Small Ponds
A niche strategy means dominating a small, well-defined market instead of fighting for a slice of a large one. It's used by startups to gain a foothold or by large firms launching specialized products. The footgun is picking a niche too small to be profitable.
Product Differentiation: Standing Out in a Crowded Market
Product differentiation is making your product uniquely distinct for a specific audience, not just objectively 'better'. It's how a new phone brand might focus on privacy to avoid competing on price alone.
The Onlyness Statement: What Makes You Unique?
The Onlyness Statement forces you to define what makes your product the *only* choice in its category. It's a test of your core business, not just marketing. Use it in strategy meetings to clarify your unique value.
VRIO Framework: Finding Your Competitive Advantage
The VRIO framework is a checklist to see if a resource is a true competitive advantage. Use it to analyze internal assets like patents or expert teams. The footgun is stopping at "Valuable"—a true moat must also be Rare, Inimitable, and Organized.
Resource-Based View: Win With What You Uniquely Have
The Resource-Based View argues a firm's unique internal resources, not market position, create sustainable advantage. It's used for long-term strategy and M&A. The footgun is overvaluing resources that competitors can easily buy or copy.
Sustainable Competitive Advantage: Building a Moat
A sustainable competitive advantage is a structural 'moat' that makes your business hard to copy. It's seen in network effects (social media), high switching costs (enterprise software), or economies of scale (Amazon).
Competitive Intelligence: Turning Market Data into Strategy
Competitive intelligence turns public data about your market into a strategic map of what might happen next. It's used when pricing products or planning campaigns. The biggest mistake is confusing it with simple competitor tracking; true CI analyzes the *why*.
Disruptive Innovation: Why 'Good Enough' Often Wins
Disruptive innovation isn't a better product, but a simpler, cheaper one incumbents ignore. It wins by serving overlooked customers at the bottom of a market, eventually moving up.
The Ansoff Matrix: Four Paths to Business Growth
The Ansoff Matrix maps growth strategy onto a 2x2 grid of products (new vs. existing) and markets (new vs. existing). It helps you decide whether to sell more of what you have or invent something new. The footgun is underestimating the risk of new ventures.
PESTLE Analysis: Mapping Your Business's External World
PESTLE analysis is a strategic checklist for scanning the external world for threats and opportunities you can't control but must react to. It's used for market entry strategy and product development.
TAM, SAM, SOM: Sizing Your Market Opportunity
TAM, SAM, and SOM are nested filters for market size. TAM is the total demand, SAM is the segment you can serve, and SOM is what you can realistically capture. It's how you go from 'everyone' to 'our first 1,000 users'.
Go-to-Market (GTM): Your Plan to Enter a Market
A Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy is the complete plan for connecting a product with customers to achieve a competitive advantage. It defines the target market, pricing, and distribution channels. The footgun is treating GTM as just a marketing or sales plan.
Porter's Five Forces: Is This Industry Worth Entering?
Porter's Five Forces is a framework for analyzing an industry's profit potential. It assesses the competitive environment to determine if a market is attractive or if its structure will drive all profits down to a baseline, like in pure competition.
Market Segmentation: Don't Sell to Everyone
Market segmentation means you don't sell to everyone. It's about dividing your market into smaller, meaningful groups to target them with tailored strategies. This is used for focused ads or niche product features.
Market Sizing: TAM, SAM, and SOM for Realistic Planning
Market sizing is a funnel, not a single number. TAM is the total universe of customers, SAM is the segment you can reach, and SOM is who you can realistically win. It's crucial for business plans and investor pitches.
Tiered Pricing: One Product, Many Prices
Tiered pricing sells one product at multiple prices by packaging features for different customer needs. It's common in SaaS (Basic, Pro, Enterprise plans) and telecoms.
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