Articles: Articles
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Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategyWhy do startups typically fail? It turns out that “avoiding those things” is already a plan for success. —March 2024 | 3,900 words.
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How startups beat incumbentsA startup can beat a large, successful incumbent, if it does things the incumbent can not or will not do. Here are those things. —February 2024 | 4,600 words.
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Selling to Carol: Why targeting an ICP brings 10x more customers than you expectedTargeting your “Ideal Customer Profile” (ICP) is the best way to differentiate and win sales, but does it limit your target market? —January 2024 | 2,700 words.
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The roadmap to Product/Market Fit (PMF)… maybeThis eight-step process brought WP Engine from an idea to a Unicorn. While there are other roads to Product/Market Fit, consider copying some of these ideas. —December 2023 | 6,600 words.
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Quarterly strategic planning using the fairytale structureTraditional fairytale structure fits naturally in our brains, and thus can guide strategic problem-analysis, and a plan that everyone understands. —November 2023 | 4,100 words.
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Mach 2: Practical Strategy in three stagesBuilding a strategy that meets you where you are, aligning all your decisions, building a moat even if you’re a startup.
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The fundamental forces of scaleThese forces make larger companies slower and more difficult to execute, but also more effective when harnessed and leveraged. —September 2023 | 4,300 words.
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What makes a strategy greatMost so-called “strategies” are vague, wishful thinking, written once and never seen again. Don’t do that. These are the characteristics of great strategy. —August 2023 | 5,800 words.
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The three kinds of leverage that anchor effective strategiesLeveraging strengths – not “fixing weaknesses” – is how to win. Better when differentiated. Best when durable. Here’s how to create leverage. —June 2023 | 3,300 words.
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Using the Needs Stack for competitive strategyThis simple method positions your product to be more valuable, especially against competitors who aim to disrupt you, or you them. —June 2023 | 3,900 words.
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Willingness-to-pay: Creating permanent competitive advantage, for the right reasonsThis fresh take on “Willingness-to-Pay” analyzes three types of customer motivation, leading to superior strategies for growth that also better the world. —May 2023 | 4,000 words.
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Excuse me, is there a problem?Many startups fail despite identifying a real problem and building a product that solves that problem. This explains why, so you can avoid their fate. —April 2023 | 6,800 words.
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Navigating the unpredictability of everythingWe dramatically, repeatedly fail to predict the future. Does that mean “strategy” is senseless? No, it means you need these techniques to navigate a volatile world. —March 2023 | 4,700 words.
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Finding FulfillmentWhat creates a fulfilling existence? Exploration leads to a framework I’ve used for years for myself and the people around me. I hope it helps you too. —December 2022 | 3,600 words.
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The Iterative-Hypothesis customer development methodA simple but effective system, used to vet what is now a Unicorn, for generating insights about how your potential customers think, what they need, and what they’ll buy. —September 2022 | 4,000 words.
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Rocks, Pebbles, Sand: How to implement in practiceThis complete work-prioritization framework builds on the simplistic “Rocks, Pebbles, Sand” analogy, adding the details you need in the real world. —July 2022 | 4,100 words.
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Replacing the “SWOT” with The LandscapeThe traditional “SWOT” analysis doesn’t create insights that lead to great strategies. By analyzing its weaknesses, we reveal what an alternative process must do instead.
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Binstack: Making a maximal multi-dimensional decisionBinstack is a technique for selecting the “single most impactful” solution when there are multiple, incomparable dimensions to evaluate. —July 2022 | 3,500 words.
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Fermi ROI: Fixing the ROI rubricTraditional rubrics fail to reveal the best answers, or how to explain those answers to others. After explaining why, the following system solves both failures. —June 2022 | 4,800 words.
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The "Talk vs Walk" workshopWe invented this strategic exercise at WP Engine – engaging both Marketing and Product, generating actions for both sides that make products more desirable and competitive. —June 2022 | 3,200 words.
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The Elephant in the room: The myth of exponential hypergrowthEven Facebook and Slack did not grow “exponentially,” as frequently described. Here is the correct model that you can use to understand and affect growth. —March 2022 | 5,500 words.
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Three languages: Disentangling our desires, needs, values, and workStop talking past each other. Understanding the three distinct languages of business allows everyone to be understood and to succeed.
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Adjacency Matrix: How to expand after PMFA simple workshop that evaluates new business ideas relative to your existing strengths – the key to expanding without overreaching.