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TRUMP UNIVERSITY ENTREPRENEURSHIP 101
vendors? Failing to answer those questions correctly can be costly. The Po-
laroid Corporation, for example, lost $500 million in the development of
instant movies. Polaroid’s invention, PolaVision, was a technological mar-
vel, but customers did not want it. The videocassette recorder preempted
Polaroid’s invention and gained rapid market acceptance.
Premise 3: Your Product or Service Must Work, Unambiguously
If it is flawed in any way and does not result in continuous customer satis-
faction, your brilliant strategy will fail miserably. Worse, your competitors
will have an opportunity to correct your mistakes and use your own strategy
against you. As an example, our static control company developed an anti-
static floor finish for use in microelectronic manufacturing facilities. It was
an excellent concept. It provided a sorely needed solution to the problem of
static generation on floor surfaces. Best of all, it was a consumable product,
which meant that repeat orders would continue flowing in. Unfortunately,
our product was not quite right technically; it was just marginally able to do
the job. One of our competitors jumped on our weak product, improved it,
and gained market dominance. We had to redevelop our product, urgently,
to get back into the game—in second position.
Four Basic Approaches to Gaining Competitive
Advantages
So strategy is about how