42
THE POWER OF A GOOD STRATEGY
Facebook wasn’t first and had no inherent unfair advantage.
Yet, they still managed to build the largest social networking platform on the planet.
How did they do this?
Facebook won on strategy, not vision.
WHAT IS STRATEGY?
Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before the defeat.
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War
1. a plan2. a pattern3. a perspective4. positioning5. a ploy
Strategy as
A means for achieving a given goal under conditions of extreme uncertainty.
STRATEGY AS HOW
WHY
HOW
WHAT
WHY
HOW
WHAT
WHY
HOW
WHAT
Strategy is a proposal for how to increase customer throughput from point A to point B within timeframe X.
The hockey-stick curve
To here?
How do you get from here?
Point A Point B
Within your desired time-box
Constraints limit your strategic options.
Constraints drive focus.
STRATEGY AS PATTERNS
“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”- Isaac Newton
Charles Darwin Charles Lyell
STRATEGY AS DIFFERENTIATION
A real unfair advantage is something that cannot be easily copied or bought.
-Jason Cohen, Founder WPEngine
The bad news.
The good news.
Some Real unfair advantages:
1. Insider information2. Personal authority3. A dream team4. Existing customers5. The “right” celebrity endorsements6. Large network effects7. Community8. Organic search (SEO) ranking9. Patents (maybe)10. Core values
Most unfair advantages
A secret is something you see that nobody else sees.
-Peter Thiel, Zero to One
What’s your secret?
Study your analogs and antilogs.
![[Tzu Sun] Sun Tzu - The Art of War(BookFi.org)](https://static.documents.pub/doc/80x56/577ccf851a28ab9e788fefb6/tzu-sun-sun-tzu-the-art-of-warbookfiorg.jpg)
