Winning customers isn’t enough: win the market instead
Protect your market from competition
I have a confession to make – I used to love instant coffee. I believed that Nescafé Gold was delicious.
Please, tell no one.
In my communist childhood, we didn’t have good coffee. My mom bought green coffee beans somewhere and roasted them herself.
We had cafés, sure—but the coffee there was a murky brown sludge with a sharp smell and a sour bite.
And when the regime collapsed, and products from the West flooded the country, we saw our first cans of Nescafé. That brown powder dissolved in hot water tasted like a sip of heaven.
Instant coffee stayed popular for many years. It was cheap, easy to make, and felt like a small luxury.
But if you see someone drinking instant coffee these days, you just know – they can’t afford anything better.
The same thing that makes your products successful today could be why they fail tomorrow.
A Chinese smartphone maker dominates the African market thanks to its customer-focused strategy. Will it hold its ground against the iPhone?