To consider the potential payoff of product diversification, let’s start with an example. Lululemon, an athletic apparel company, was founded in 1998 with one core product: yoga clothing for women. If you’ve been to a store recently, you’ve likely seen how far beyond women’s yoga-clothing Lululemon has grown. For instance,…
When I first moved out of my parent’s house, my spending was out of control. I bought take-out regularly, new clothes often, and fun products frequently. However, I quickly realized that I was spending too much money on unnecessary things. After racking up some credit card debt, I realized that…
When McDonald’s first opened its doors, they had two items on the menu: burgers and fries. After surveying competitors, the founders saw that in order to stand out as a food company, they had to be different. Instead of offering a multitude of menu options, they decided to hyper-focus on…
In 2008, the Great Recession was all over the news. At 14, I didn’t exactly know what that meant. However, I understood that my parents were struggling financially. While it was the first economic crisis I was old enough to remember, it isn’t the only economic downturn we’ve seen, nationally…
Let me ask you a question. If you could learn any skill in one hour, what would it be? When you’re looking to learn something new, there are plenty of online courses that can help you improve your skills. HubSpot Academy (HubSpot’s training division) is one of those online providers…
In 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone. The cell phone boasted a full touch screen, a slew of personalization options, and internet capabilities. These features were rare in the phone market before the iPhone, and having them all on one device was especially enticing. Because of these innovative features, Apple built…
In the business world, professionals are obsessed with tactics because they can help them meet their short-term goals. But if all you do is focus on the short-term, you won’t spend enough time or energy figuring out how you can succeed in the long-term. Fortunately, building a strategy can help…
When most businesses forecast their revenue goals, they first calculate their total addressable market, which is the total market demand for their industry’s products or services. Put simply, it’s the maximum amount of revenue a business could generate if they captured their entire market. However, unless you’re a monopoly, you…
As humans, we hate loss. In fact, losing something emotionally impacts us more than gaining something of the same value. We can get so loss-averse that we’ll take risks just to avoid a loss, like how we sometimes cling onto a stock that continues to plummet in value because we…
When Charlie Jabaley, co-founder of the artist management and marketing firm Street Execs, released one of his first client t-shirt designs, the euphoric high he felt in the morning plummeted to a heartbreaking low by night. He had only sold a total of eight t-shirts. With famous clients like 2…