MKT-523, Brand Management

Topic: Differentiation or Die & Zero to One Short Summary”

Submitted to-: Mustaque Ahmed.

Submitted by- Md. Shahajaman Samrat (ID- 2019-02-91-035)

Sec- 1
Program- EMBA

Submission Date- 27 Oct 2020

East West University

 Differentiation or Die:
Choice benefits consumers, but it makes work harder for businesses.
Choice in everything - from healthcare to restaurants to rental agencies -
creates a competitive situation. The battle that used to feature local
companies competing against each other locally has become a global
capitalistic hot war in which everybody has to compete against
everybody everywhere.

“As companies race to benchmark each other, companies become more

alike.”

Companies can’t make mistakes. If you do, your competitors get your
business and you don’t get it back very easily. Companies that don’t
understand this will not survive.

"Differentiate or die" means that you have to give your customer a

compelling reason, or "difference," to buy your product as opposed to
your competitors’. You can create differences in many ways, but any
approach involves stepping over a lot of potholes. Trying to be
everything to everybody can undermine your company’s profile.

“Cutting prices is usually insanity if the competition can go as low as

you can.”

Chevrolet used to be known as the dominant good-value family car.

Then Chevy added a number of different brands to its stock - and what
does Chevrolet stand for now? Their ’differentness’ melted away.

You also can lose your difference if you ignore changes in the market.
DEC missed the PC revolution and simply didn’t switch to desktop
machines fast enough. The problem of hyper-competition fueled by
choice will only get worse. Choice appears to beget more choice.
 Zero to One summary
1-Sentence-Summary: Zero To One is an inside look at Peter Thiel's philosophy
and strategy for making your startup a success by looking at the lessons he
learned from founding and selling PayPal, investing in Facebook and becoming a
billionaire in the process.

In a world of gigantic administrative bureaucracies both public and private,

searching for a new path might seem like hoping for a miracle. Actually, if
American business is going to succeed, we are going to need hundreds, or even
thousands, of miracles. This would be depressing but for one crucial fact: humans
are distinguished from other species by our ability to work miracles. We call these
miracles technology.

In this book, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can
find singular ways to build companies that create new things or innovations. It
draws on everything Peter Thiel has learned directly as a co-founder of PayPal and
Palantir and then an investor in hundreds of start-ups, including Facebook and
SpaceX. As every innovation is new and unique, there is no such formula on how
to be innovative. Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of
progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation or business from
first principles instead of formulas which starts by learning to ask the questions
that lead us to find value in unexpected places.
 Zero to One Chapter wise Summary

Chapter 1: The Challenge of The Future

Peter Thiel says that the future is only the future if it’s different from today.

If society doesn’t change for a thousand years, then the future is a thousand years away. If things
change drastically over the course of a decade, then the future is now.

The author says that nobody can see the future, but we know two things about it: it will be
different, and yet it will be rooted in today’s world.

Zero to One: The Vertical & Horizontal Way

Thiel talks about two different kinds of changes: horizontal and vertical.

 Horizontal: Horizontal means incremental improvements on what exists already

 Vertical improvement means doing something completely new.

But without radical changes in technology, the world cannot sustain billions of people living
with the same US standards.

Startups Need New Thinking

On the other hand, a startup most valuable asset is a new way of thinking. What a startup must
do is question ideas and rethinking businesses.

Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply

Chapter 2: Party Like It’s 1999

Peter Thiel says that the dot.com bubble taught entrepreneurs four fake big lessons:

1. Make incremental advances: the only safe path

2. Stay lean and flexible: plans are seen as a straight jacket. “try things out” instead, don’t plan
3. Improve on the competition: don’t try to enter new markets prematurely
4. Focus on product, not sales: if you need sales, your product is not good

Thiel says the opposite is true instead:

1. Better to risk boldness than triviality

2. A bad plan is better than no plan
3. Stay away from competitive markets: they destroy profits
 4. Sales matters (as much as the product)

The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crow, but to think for yourself

Chapter 3: All Happy Companies Are Different

The business equivalent of a contrarian question is:

What valuable company is nobody building.

Peter Thiel talks in this chapter about monopolies and perfect competition.

Monopoly though means something different in Peter’s vocabulary: monopoly is a company

doing something so good that nobody else can offer a close substitute.
Google is such an example of a company achieving monopoly for having gone from zero to one.

Monopolies Power Moves

Monopolies Are Good Companies

All happy companies are different because they solved a unique problem or came up with a
unique, life-changing product. All failed companies instead are the same: none of them came up
with a great new product.

Chapter 4: The Ideology of Competition

Thiel says it’s just economists who frown over monopolies and love competition.

It’s our society that has embraced the competition ideology.

Our educational system is based on competition and businesses love war references (“make a
kill”, “sales task force” etc.).

The author says that the wars start for trivial reasons and keep going without any real reason.
Microsoft VS Google is such an example, taking on each other with a myriad of competing
products.
Until Apple came along and focused on innovating instead of battling and made a killing (pun
intended).

Chapter 5: Last Mover Advantage

Short term profit-making culture pervades many startups.

He says that there’s no sure fire way to build a monopoly, but each monopoly shares four
characteristics:
 1. Proprietary Technology: great tech improving on the past in order of magnitudes (IE: google
search, iPad)
2. Network Effects: when so many people use a product the scale tips and everyone joins
3. Economies of Scale: monopoly businesses get stronger growing bigger (not the case for service
businesses)
4. Branding: a brand should embody an ideology

Don’t disrupt: add value and avoid competition

The Last Will Be First

Chapter 6: You Are Not a Lottery Ticket

Peter Thiel here talks about “luck” and its role in business success.

He says the phenomenon of successful serial entrepreneur calls into question the “luck logic”.

The author talks further about pessimists and optimists and about Lean Methodologies.
He says six sigma and lean methodology is about incremental improvements and will not get you
from zero to one.

Chapter 7: Follow The Money

Thiel says that anyone without a salary or stock options is misaligned with the company
interests.

Part-time employees and external consultants don’t work because they don’t have aligned
interests.
They don’t really have the best future of the company at heart.

Chapter 8: Secrets

Peter Thiel says in this world most people don’t think there are any “secrets” left to discover.

Of course, the truth is there are countless “secrets” left to be found and countless problems left to
be solved.

Chapter 9: Foundations

You’ll always make mistakes, but a few things you better get them right at the beginning.

The author says indeed that early mistakes are often very costly.
The constitution hardly ever changed even though an update would be beneficial.
Similarly, early mistakes in choosing your co-founders or even early employees are damn hard to
correct.

Set Up Clear Structure & Clear Responsibilities

Thiel says that a clear structure and clear responsibilities will help keep people in line in the long
run.

A basic structure tells you who:

1. Owns the company (ownership)

2. Runs the company on a daily basis
3. Formally control the company affairs

Chapter 10: The Mechanics of Mafia

Thiel says that in the ideal culture employees love the company and love their job to the point
they don’t look at when it’s time to go home.

1. Your Team
2. Your Mission

No company has a culture. Every company IS a culture.

Chapter 11: If You Build It, Will They Come?

Peter Thiel says there’s a certain anti-sales mindset in Silicon Valley.

The idea, as wrong as it is, is that if you need to sell a product the product is not that good.

Actually, sales might be matter more than proudct. Sales and distribution can create a monopoly,
but a great product without strong sales distribution and won’t spread by itself.

Some great summaries on sales and influencing for you: Maximum Influence, The Art of
Closing The Sale, Pre-Suasion, Triggers.

Chapter 12: Man And Machine

Peter Thiel says the debate of man VS machine or even machine taking over people’s task is a
silly one.

Chapter 13: Seeing Green

Peter Thiel talks in this chapter about the failure of the clean tech bubble.
He says the reason for the failure is to be researched in 7 key areas every business must address:

1. Engineering: can we create breakthroughs instead of incremental

2. Timing: is now the time to start your business
3. Monopoly: are you starting with a big share of a small market?
4. People: do you have the right team
5. Distribution: do you have a way to distribute your product
6. Durability: will your market be defensible in 10 years in the future
7. Secret: have you identified unique opportunities others don’t see?

Huge markets are highly competitive, not highly attainable

Chapter 14: The Founder’s Paradox

Thiel talks about how paradoxical founders can be and what a difference they can make to a
company.

A founder can also become the main figure of the whole companies, and in spite of the modern
tech they build, come to resemble kings of feudal time who imbibe their companies with their
spirit -or use their persona for further marketing, hard to say sometimes-.