I’ve cancelled several monthly subscriptions that had discounted introductory pricing over the past few months. It’s almost always the reason I switch cable providers.  Clearly teaser rates must work because credit card companies and other vendors continue to offer low rates or free ad-ons for initial periods.  With that said, I become accustomed to the monthly bundle of services provided [...]

Reservations are often important for inventory management when specific dates and times are of leading importance; however, they are widely overused, particularly in consumer facing situations.  How often have you showed up without a reservation to a restaurant to be told that all the tables are reserved, yet as you scan the room you see many vacant?  ”They’re coming in [...]

The cost of premium liquor versus “well” drinks is a mismatch that I believe too few consumers take advantage of. This is especially true when hosting events. People often host corporate events or parties with the per head cost for food upwards of $100. The differential between bottom shelf and top shelf liquor is often only few extra dollars, yet [...]

I’ve written extensively my belief that competition is seldom the cause of death for startups. Most companies are not competed out of business but rather fail because of flawed execution, lack of demand, or structural issues in the market. In tandem with this belief comes a second heuristic: point solutions win. A focussed team working exclusively on a specific problem [...]

[Updated 9/19/11 AM with Netflix discussion] The greatest danger of innovation to incumbent businesses is often misdiagnosed as distraction.  Business people often state, “We can’t become distracted from our core focus by the latest shiny object.”  I believe this is like fearing acne in the face of what can often be terminal diseases. The greatest danger in innovation is not [...]

I got my haircut yesterday on Lexington avenue at my neighborhood barber shop. I hadn’t seen my barber in about 8 weeks, as friends, family, and co-workers can attest to, and we reminisced about the east coast hurricane. I was shocked to learn that the Saturday of hurricane weekend was incredibly busy. Despite public transportation closing at noon, my barber [...]

Content Gifts are the new ads because there are well documented principles of gift giving that make this an effective form of value exchange.  A content gift is some information or entertainment that a brand provides to a consumer in exchange for earning the right and engagement to issue a call to action. Ideally the “content gift” is shareable and [...]

[A shorter version of this post ran on Digiday] Roughly ten years ago, while in business school, I decided that I wanted to be a professor of economics. My senior thesis (see page 43) had a some discusion of behavioral economics, and I was intent on writing, researching, and teaching on the subject. Behavioral economics holds that rational economic models [...]

Network effects are poorly understood. In most cases, networks tend to merge and interconnect. One network may become dominant, but even the dominant player tends to interconnect at some point, as opposed to try and simply kill off competitors. I believe that iMessage will eventually interconnect with other mobile instant messing apps. Despite the large share of iOS, keeping it [...]

It’s intriguing to me how Apple adjusts its launch process between products. The first iPhone was activated from home, the second was activated in the store. The first iPad was made available for in-store purchase and guaranteed home delivery on the same date – if you recall, they opened online ordering far ahead of launch day to allow for everyone [...]