You should read this great segment, where Allan Webber (founder of Fast Company) explains how counterintuitive can be a great economic model. It is actually a chapter from Allan Webber’s new book Rules of Thumb and it ca be found on Tim Farris blog “The 4 Hour Work Week”
It is about a 5 minute read and is well worth it. Here are a few quotes to stimulate you curiosity
“If you want to change the game, change the economics of how the game is played.”
“[Jerry Garcia] articulated a competitive strategy for the Grateful Dead that put him at the top of my list of management gurus: “You do not merely want to be considered just the best of the best. You want to be considered the only ones who do what you do.”
“They had a different theory of the economics, which led to a different business model, which led to a different announcement before the show: ‘(Tape all you want! Make all the bootlegs you want, trade them, swap them, sell them to each other)”
“The game today is all about changing the game. Competing head-to-head on products and services is table stakes. Innovators are looking for a new business model that will destabilize their rivals and produce a breakthrough opportunity. In fact, in a recent survey of top-level executives in established companies IBM found that the biggest shared concern is that somewhere in the world—in a garage or a dorm room— someone is coming up with a new business model that will overthrow their established way of doing business.”
“How do you do it?”
“What would happen if the whole business moved to the Web? If things that customers paid for now became free? Free, as the saying goes, is a pretty good price. What if you did a King Gillette and gave away the razor? What could you charge for? Take it one more step: are you hurting your business by charging for something you should give away free?”
“There are a lot of ways to reinvent an economic model. But most established companies are unwilling to do it because it would mean destabilizing their own operation.”
A great read, check it out
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