The Star Principle: How it can make you rich

TRIGGER 13. MASCULINE VERSUS FEMININE

A star that is fast losing market share, or an ex-star that has lost it, may be an attractive prospect.

Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity. Marshall McLuhan

My own experience is that, as I have made more money and started more successful ventures, the less I have worked. Hard work is either a red herring, or negatively correlated with success.

If you start a business doing what you did before, and the previous business made a lot of money, you expect to do so too. You are usually wrong. You run up against one of the most basic and unwelcome laws of strategy. To succeed, a venture has to do something different. It has to be a leader. And to be really successful you have to be a star busin

TRIGGER 32. IDEAS FROM OTHER PLACES

Emotion is warm and expensive. Function is no-nonsense, rational, inexpensive, stripped down to the essentials. Can you create a new niche by going ‘emotional’ in a market that is mainly ‘functional’?

This is a different kind of prompt, courtesy of the management guru Peter Drucker. The idea is to catch the leading players in a market off balance by turning their strength into a weakness.

TRIGGER 10. SAVING TIME VERSUS EXTENDING TIME