Nathan Baschez and Eric Thompson: “Facebook started only at Harvard. Airbnb started only in San Francisco. Opendoor started only in Phoenix. DoorDash started only in Palo Alto. The Athletic started by only covering the Cubs. This strategy—solely focusing on serving the needs of one niche first before expanding to others—is a market wedge. And although it might seem simple (“gotta start somewhere!”) getting your market wedge right is anything but…A market wedge, on the other hand, is basically the inverse of a product wedge. Instead of sacrificing power for growth, you sacrifice growth for power, and focus on a small niche within the larger market you’d eventually like to reach. By limiting who you aim to serve, you have a better chance of developing some power within that market early, like network effects, brand, economies of scale, etc.”
Prince Ghuman: “We are not far from a future where the combination of data (CRMs) and neuromarketing will provide unprecedented levels of behavior predictions and, eerily, behavior design. It is not all doom and gloom; however, as long as consumers and marketers both take some time to understand the basics of consumer behavior and neuromarketing.”
Gautam Bambawale: “At the heart of the Deng reforms which delivered consistently high GDP growth rates for four decades, was the devolution of economic decision-making from the Party Centre to the individual farmer, worker, village enterprise and entrepreneur. Central planning gave way to a socialist, market economy. Armed with such economic decision-making power, China’s industrious, bright, innovative and entrepreneurial individuals powered the economic miracle of the past 40 years. Decentralised but rational decisions made by millions of private Chinese individuals within the framework provided by Deng were the raison d’être of China’s economic success.”
