Essays on differentiation, building and growing startups.
Google is the secret DTC startup killer
Because for 95% of Direct To Consumer (DTC) startup companies Google Ads marketing spend is a waste of their most precious resources: Time and money. Once they run out of those, the startup goes bust. Why do I believe that Google offers bad value for most startups? In...
Spotify’s layoffs are a warning for startups without differentiation
Spotify’s Net Promoter Score is 51 (NPS is a measure of customer love, the scale ranges from -100 to +100, so 51 is really good). On the surface, they are successful and enjoy a lot of customer love. But Spotify is actually a commoditised business, which leads to low...
Drive growth by doing the exact opposite of your competition
James Daunt’s first day on the job kicked off with a bang. His first task was to work out how to get his company out of an existential crisis. UK bookseller Waterstones had hundreds of physical stores and was investing heavily in its online presence. Threatened by...
How startups stand out from the competition by bundling and unbundling
When Jim Barksdale was preparing for his company to go public in 1995, he left a room full of bankers baffled as he finished his speech: “Gentlemen, there’s only two ways I know of to make money: bundling and unbundling.” And with that said, he left the room. ...
Communities: The next startup growth frontier?
Startups are struggling to find cheap acquisition channels. Communities may hold the answer as the next startup growth frontier