Topic Cluster

Market

‘Market’ is a shorthand for ‘factors influencing the market’, which is one of the three legs of triad mental model of business expertise. If you don’t know what that is, read this page first.

The ‘Market’ topic cluster includes strategic adversarial thinking, though large bits of strategy also involve operating well. The big framework in the Market topic cluster is the 7 Powers framework by Hamilton Helmer. But Market covers other things. For instance, you need to understand the shape of the game you’re playing —  which in turn means a deep understanding of your customers, your competitors, your positioning against those competitors, the threat of new entrants, and how that can change over time. We also cover thinking methods that make it slightly easier to reason about adversarial competition (particularly in a business context).

7 Powers

7 Powers by Hamilton Helmer is probably the best framework we have right now for thinking about competition in business. You may treat the following series of articles as a loose cluster of ideas around the framework.

Series and Guides

  • The Incentive Series — How do you use incentives as a method to understanding customer behaviour (in order to sell to said customers)? This series tells the story of a multi-year attempt to sell to the food & beverage (F&B) industry, and how understanding F&B industry incentives eventually helped us crack that nut.

Notable Articles

Some notable Commoncog pieces in the Market topic cluster.

‘Market’ is a shorthand for ‘factors influencing the market’, which is one of the three legs of triad mental model of business expertise. If you don’t know what that is, read this page first.

The ‘Market’ topic cluster includes strategic adversarial thinking, though large bits of strategy also involve operating well. The big framework in the Market topic cluster is the 7 Powers framework by Hamilton Helmer. But Market covers other things. For instance, you need to understand the shape of the game you’re playing —  which in turn means a deep understanding of your customers, your competitors, your positioning against those competitors, the threat of new entrants, and how that can change over time. We also cover thinking methods that make it slightly easier to reason about adversarial competition (particularly in a business context).

7 Powers

7 Powers by Hamilton Helmer is probably the best framework we have right now for thinking about competition in business. You may treat the following series of articles as a loose cluster of ideas around the framework.

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Articles //  Page 1

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Businesses as Ecosystem Organisms

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The Idea Maze is a Useless Idea

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Getting Burnt by Business Expansion

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Business Ecosystem Change Takes Time

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Learning About Moats the Hard Way

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One Definition of Wisdom

Charlie Munger’s biggest business mistake, and what it tells us about wisdom.

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Charlie Munger’s Supply Demand Curve Puzzle

What a puzzle from Charlie Munger tells us about a supply-side business model with unreasonably high returns.

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Understand the Shape of the Game You're Playing

What it looks like when you come up with a diagnosis for your business, a thing that is necessary for strategy.

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There Is No Truth in Business, Only Knowledge

'Knowledge' here is defined as 'theories or models that help you predict better'. How an idea from W. Edwards Deming may well be a working philosophy of business.

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The Shape of a Technological Window

Technological Windows is Steve Jobs's conception of the game of consumer technology. We look at how he used it over the course of his career. Note: this is a follow-up to and an update for the Commoncog Case Library Beta.