Posted by Dave Lorenzo - Business Coach

Olivier Blanchard studies one of the mighty who fell:

“…here’s what sealed Blockbuster’s fate: It never reached out to us, the old core of once loyal customers. It never made us feel at home there. It never worked on making the Blockbuster experience a great one… or even a half-way decent one, at that.”

Visit any online hangout community (like friendster.com or myspace.com) and take a look around. When it comes to renting movies, everyone’s talking about Netflix.

What this says to me is that there is always room in any market, no matter how glutted and monopolized it may seem, for improvement. There is always the opportunity for the little guy with the big idea to swoop in and save the day. We the people know what we want. We knew what Blockbuster wasn’t giving us.

If you are inspired to start your own business but fear the competition, don’t. Identify their weak spots and provide a product or service that solves the problem. If there’s anything that refreshes a jaded consumer and turns him into a little kid again, it’s having a long-unmet want finally met and exceeded.

Filed under: First, Best or Different
TrackBack URI     

1 Response »

Trackbacks & Pingbacks

1. […] Reading David Lorenzo’s comments about wanting to start a business, I found that he made some smart comments about two companies mentioned in a recent blog meme: Netflix vs. Blockbuster. Why did people give up on their neighborhood Blockbuster? They gave it up because it did not respond to their needs. Now Netflix is not perfect, but they were able to fill a need and find converts. All it took was seeing the need and having determination to stick with the business to the end. […]

   Pingback by chris-elliott.com» Blog Archive » Bringing down the house — March 28, 2006 @ 17:26

Comments

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>

Name (required)

E-mail (required)

URI

Your Comment