After four years, I am shutting down Vegetarian Wellness to focus on being a dad (we expect our first child). Vegetarian Wellness was a labor of love. As a vegetarian, I found that vitamin manufacturers lacked transparency, and Vegetarian Wellness aimed to address that issue. I was also proud of running a carbon-neutral business.
On returning from Turkey, we stayed a few days in Paris. Sadly the Notre Dame Cathedral was damaged due to a fire in 2019.
One of the most memorable things we did in Turkey was taking a hot air balloon ride over Cappadocia.
Within Turkey, there is a well-preserved Greek city called Ephesus. Greek homes, an outdoor amphitheater, and the city were intact with great detail.
If I remember correctly, one of the larger Ionian cities was located in what is now Izmir, Turkey. The outdoor amphitheater built into the mountainside was well preserved and a highlight.
The city of Troy is located in present-day Turkey. Unfortunately, not much of Troy survived, though some walls and fragments of the city persist.
We spent two weeks in Turkey, including the city of Istanbul. Istanbul is historically one of the most exciting cities to visit as Byzantine, Greek, Roman, Persian, Egyptian and Arabic architecture collides together within the city.
Business models come in all shapes and designs, boasting their lingo from SaaS, freemium, B2B, B2C, and so on. But ultimately, business frameworks can be derived from three simple archetypes. Ash Maurya succinctly boils down business models to the following:
Multisided business models generally deliver value to users and, in turn, work with customers to monetize. Take Yahoo, for example, where users may come to Yahoo to participate in fantasy sports. The user exchanges their time and attention consuming Yahoo content. In turn, Yahoo turns around and sells a derivative currency which in this example may be advertising impressions on a page or cookie data to advertisers. Yahoo is not charging the user directly, but rather the content is being paid for by advertisers trying to reach targeted shoppers online.
Examples of Multisided, Ad-based, Big Data, and not-for-profits
Direct businesses are the most common and straightforward businesses around. These types of businesses provide value in exchange for currency. As long as the customer has greater value than the product or service cost, you have a happy customer.
Examples of Direct Models: Software as a Service (SaaS), physical goods, retailers, service providers, and retail store
Marketplaces are the most complicated type of business to pull off. Like a multisided business, they work with multiple segments of buyers and sellers. In a Multisided model, the entrepreneur can tackle and solve one side of the model (in Facebook’s case, first building up users and then eventually addressing monetization). However, unlike multi-sided businesses, the marketplace model must simultaneously handle both the buyer and seller to be successful. Think of a company like Uber, which would not have been successful if it had not built the driver and customer base simultaneously.
Strategy is choosing to win and increases your chance of success (or de-risks the overall effort). Conversely, companies without winning strategies will eventually fade away. Roger Martin, author of Playing to Win: How Strategy Works, defined the five common mistakes that lead to a poor strategy.
Do It All Strategy – Doing everything and failing to make any choices. Strategy is about making choices, and such a strategy is absent choices.
Don Quixote Strategy – Taking on the strongest competitor first head to head or choosing to initially attack an opponent’s stronghold as part of an opening strategy.
Waterloo Strategy – Taking on multiple fronts at the same time fighting multiple opponents (and doing so weakly)
Dream That Never Comes True – Building high-level aspirations that never translate into a strategy
Program of the Month – Buying into a generic strategy similar to your competitors. Chasing the same goals in similar ways is a recipe for failure.
Understanding the five traps of poor strategy is an excellent start to knowing when you are not making the right strategic choices. I was surprised by how strategy is misunderstood in the corporate world. So many organizations believe they have a strategy when they do not. Some companies chase what is en vogue at the moment, constantly shifting their direction. Other businesses try to be all things to everyone avoiding making choices.
Developing a strategy does not have to be complicated. Willingness to define where you want to take your business and what choices and trade-offs you are willing to take. I recommend reading Roger Martin’s blog makes strategy straightforward and accessible.
Took a Safari tour at the San Diego Wild park. The tour consisted of an open-air vehicle that allowed us to see the animals up close.
