Entrepreneur

APPENDIX A:116 BUSINESS STRATEGIES FOR ENTREPRENEURS

Product and product portfolio strategies

1. Fusion product – you merge product concepts that were previously sold separately. An example is Cirque du Soleil, which merges concepts from restaurants, sports, circus, dance and rock concerts.
2. Central aggregator – you collect other people's products in an integrated solution such as a media platform or an IT solution. This is very often used in IT.
3. Blockbuster – you make a big hit such as a movie, a music album or a video game, which is an enormous success and maybe goes viral.
4. Target the poor – products are designed specifically to accommodate poor people. The profits from each unit may not be great, but the supplier can use this to lift its overall production volume, which can give other commercial advantages such as economies of scale or building brand awareness among poor who will later reach middle class. This is often used by consumer goods providers such as Unilever.
5. Trash-to-cash – you collect used products or mere trash and upgrade or transform them so that they can be sold well. The key business edge is the low purchase price (in some cases, companies are actually paid money to take it) plus in some senses the great marketing story about re-usage (environmental awareness).
6. Ultimate luxury – your product is not only good but among the very best within its category. Instead of promoting good value for money, you make the high price a part of the product feature: you may ...