At the end of the article, you’ll find a link to my free mini-book The Plague of Strategic Goals. Enjoy your reading!
1. Strategy and Value Exchange: You don’t need a product, a market, or product-market fit to be successful
This term narrows your strategic thinking
Finding product-market fit is like solving a crossword where the correct answers already exist.
[1] Product
If you’re chasing ‘product-market fit,’ you’ve already lost.
Draw your product ideas from customer needs and test them before they become a product.
[2] Market
‘Markets’ don’t exist. Customers do.
If you draw your ideas from customers, you don’t need to think about ‘markets.’
[3] Fit
You need to create customers, turning those who didn’t even consider about using your solutions into loyal fans.
Dive into customer needs.
Find unrecognized needs.
Create solutions that can satisfy these needs much better than others.
Craft a strategy that will help you grow.
2. Strategy-related terms: Business isn’t about technology—it’s about people
Bezos’s philosophy is why the e-commerce king is losing the brick-and-mortar battle
Amazon launched the Amazon Go convenience store in 2018.
But something went wrong.
The retailer has shrunk its Go portfolio by about half since early 2023 to 16 stores in four states, The WSJ reports.
The e-commerce giant hasn’t managed to gain a foothold in the retail market.
In 2018, Jeff Bezos stated in his letter to Amazon shareholders: “Market research doesn’t help. No customer was asking for Echo.”
But Echo is still a little more than a ‘smart timer,’ as a former Amazon employee called it.
Jeff Bezos has always believed in tech and innovation more than in customer research.
And he succeeded only where he built the most humanless, emotionless experience: online retail and cloud computing.
These are industries where customers seek fewer interactions with humans and where technology matters most.
When Amazon tries to create a device or service for humans, it often fails.
Quote: “…Amazon has lost tens of billions of dollars on its devices business, which includes Echos and other products such as Kindles, Fire TV Sticks and video doorbells…”
Business isn’t about technology—it’s about people. But tech nerds don’t like people, don’t understand people, and don’t want to.
Are you looking for a strategic adviser? Send me a request.
3. The event of the week: Has the “Chinese invasion” of the U.S. consumer market come to an end?
U.S. Postal Service Suspends Shipments of China Parcels
Donald Trump did what Joseph Biden just promised.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
“The U.S. Postal Service said it would stop accepting parcels from China and Hong Kong, cutting off a service that is popular with online vendors in China…
The move comes after the Trump administration imposed new tariffs on China and moved to close a loophole that allows companies to avoid paying tariffs if they ship packages worth less than $800 directly to U.S. consumers.”
So, the loophole is closed.
Jeff Bezos must be happy. Amazon can roll back its attempt to copy Temu’s business model (I wrote about that in June).
Not using a loophole in the law as a strategic opportunity is a sign of shortsightedness.
Building an entire strategy solely on exploiting the loophole is double shortsightedness.
Svyatoslav Biryulin
––
Download my free mini-book The Plague of Strategic Goals here.
Read also: Bulls, AI, and Strategic Myopia.
Do you need expert guidance to craft a winning strategy for your business? Send me a request.
Visit my website. Join my free newsletter to read more groundbreaking articles on strategic thinking.
Check out my book, Red and Yellow Strategies: Flip Your Strategic Thinking and Overcome Short-termism.
If you’re a Telegram user, subscribe to my free channel.
