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Angles

Have you looked at your business model from EVERY possible angle?  What have you left on the table? Because whatever it is you slacked on is the exact same thing that's going to kill your business.  μ We're talking vertically, horizontally, and diagonally from a customer, operations, investment, communications, and management perspective.  Your competitors are smarter, faster, and richer than you, and you better believe they're going to exploit any weakness you have.  Or maybe you've just gotten the customer fit wrong and they won't even show up at your door.

Pringles, Pivots, & Brad Pitt

So what do Pringles have to do with angles besides their shape?  Well, lets journey back to P&G's creation in 1968.  It took until the mid 1970s before they decided to release broadly throughout America.  So what did they do all those years?  The issue was P&G tried to market these new "chips" in much the same way as classic potato chips -- to the moms and pops of the home.  But there was a problem, which wasn't uncovered until performing in-depth market research techniques such as laddering that uncovered the mismatch between consumer perceptions and the appropriate target market. Because the Pringles chip was standardized (not chaotic like most chips) and came in a surgically precise tin can, the "old" consumer felt that the chips tasted "bland and generic", echoing the design of the product and packaging, even though blind taste tests found Pringles preferable to classic chips due to less breakage and less grease.  What Pringles finally realized was they were marketing to the wrong customer segment.  They needed to pivot to find one that embraced being different and preferred bucking authority.  So who fit the bill?  Teens, of course.  Have a look at the following commercial to see where they landed: Little known fact: Brad Pitt starred in one of the early Pringles television commercials in the 1980s.

Epiphany

The rest, as they say, is history, and Pringles now enjoys over $1 billion in annual sales.  To think, it all started because they didn't just run to market with something they "hoped" would work, but tested it, got feedback, and refined the message so the product fit the customer, not the other way around. You can call this customer development, a lean startup, pivoting, or whatever you want.  But at the end of the day, it's about spending the brute force time to think through your business from every possible angle, talking it over with your associates, advisors, and customers, then making a decision. Be prepared to change or pivot in a moment's notice.  Your customers will. Build.  Test.  Iterate.  Rules to live by, methinks. You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.
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