Name: Md.

Zayedul Haque, ID: 2020-3-95-027

Book Review: Differentiate or Die By Jack Trout.

Summary: Choice benefits consumers, but it makes work harder for businesses. With choice in
everything from healthcare to restaurants to rental agencies, there is more competition because
companies have to compete against each other everywhere.

Companies can’t make mistakes. If they do, their competitors will get the business and they
won’t get it back easily. Companies that don’t understand this will not survive.

Differentiate or die means that you have to give your customers a reason to buy from you instead
of the competition. You can differentiate in many ways, but it’s difficult to do so without
stepping on some toes. Trying to be everything for everyone is not always the best approach.

Chevrolet used to be known for having good-value cars, but then they added a bunch of different
brands and what does Chevrolet stand for now? Their ‘differentness’ has been lost.

If you ignore changes in the market, you could lose your competitive advantage. For example,
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) missed out on the personal computer revolution and was
slow to switch from big machines to desktop computers. As a result of hyper-competition run by
choice, this problem will only get poorer. Choice causes more choice.
Book Review: Zero to One by Peter Thiel.
Summary: Zero to One by Peter Thiel the thoughts of Peter Thiel on start-ups that he penned
down in his book with Blake Masters –Zero to One, are very interesting. The book, by its cover,
may seem to be a self-help business book for young entrepreneurs, however its redefinition of
the economic concepts makes it a thought-provoking read. The central theme of the book
revolves around how entrepreneurs should realize one single “secret” that will enable them to
differentiate their company from the rivals and take them from 0 to 1, instead of going from 1 to
n by replicating what somebody else has conceptualized and being a “me-too” company. The
author begins by asking the contrarian question –“What important truth do very few people agree
with you on?” Through the book he tries to defy the conventional beliefs of doing business and
presents compelling cases to prove the same. The book directs towards how entrepreneurs should
embrace monopoly instead of battling for the minimum profits in a competitive market. The
book cites examples from the dotcom bubble and how the technology space crashed leading to
strong beliefs amongst founders that one needs to make incremental advances, stay lean and
flexible, improve on the competition and focus on product, not sales. Defying the “principles” of
a successful business and refuting the argument that success is the result of built-in privilege, the
author encourages startups to be bold, have a clear plan, build and dominate a small market and
focus on both product and sales. Peter Thiel, a founder of PayPal and the data analytics firm
Palantir strongly advocates that every start-up must begin small and monopolistic before getting
big. Though this might be one of the rudiments for entrepreneurs, his quote-“The paradox of
teaching entrepreneurship is that such a formula necessarily cannot exist; because every
innovation is new and unique, no authority can prescribe in concrete terms how to be
innovative”-hints that there is no set formula for an entrepreneur to succeed. Alongside giving
business advice of building a mini-monopoly to test product with early adopters and giving
importance to the marketing and sales aspect of the business, the author also shares some
humanisticadvicefor successful organization building–to treat fellow founders as family, assign
limited task to great employees and allow a sense of belonging and ownership