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Many retail chains are successfully patterning themselves on the Toys “” Us formula: a narrow focus with in-depth stock. Staples (office supplies) and Blockbuster Video are two recent examples.

Al Ries, Jack Trout • The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Exposed and Explained by the World's Two

The business-as-a-product would only sell if it worked. And the only way to make certain it would work in the hands of a franchisee anywhere in the world would be to build it out of perfectly predictable components that could be tested in a prototype long before ever going into mass production.

Michael E. Gerber • The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It

Just as the rise of influencers and fall of corporate legitimacy left individuals to become the primary distribution for brands and eventually to form their own (Tyler, Rihanna, even George Clooney), a few individual devs can take the place of entire corporations in building decentralized financial rails.

David Phelps • People are the New Platforms

Much like Apple with its iPad, the category was Bhargava’s strategy. He envisioned the category and how to build it, evangelized the problem, then created the product and company to attack it.

Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead, • Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets

We wanted to build a business around delivering something better than expected; over-promise, then over-deliver.

Brett Leve • Make No Small Plans: Lessons on Thinking Big, Chasing Dreams, and Building Community

Every company was inspired by his vision: be daring; offer something new and exciting; appeal to people’s willingness to take a chance; and sell an enjoyable experience as well as a product or service.

David M. Rubenstein • How to Lead: Wisdom from the World's Greatest CEOs, Founders, and Game Changers

Design For Your Competitors

Löwy Juval • Righting Software

This is simply one among many Buyer Legends. We could construct a Buyer Legend of a young entrepreneur who needs

Bryan Eisenberg • Buyer Legends: The Executive Storyteller’s Guide

A few months later, Feirstein and Moran made a significant discovery: almost all of their customers did business with them only once. They had a transactional business yet they were trying to make it so much more than that. So they stopped trying to make their service “better than similar offers,” and instead settled with good. Given that most peop