From the Reporters
Carole Matthews

Inc.'s Book Club

 

Join the discussion! Read Inc.'s March 2005 "Book Club" column by Reporter Darren Dahl here, post your comments about the book, and e-mail us questions you have for the authors. Send them to Darren Dahl at ddahl@inc.com, using the subject line, Book Club, by Feb. 25, 2005. We'll send the best ones to the authors for answering, and then post a complete Q&A on Fresh Inc. by March 10.

Uncharted Seas

Excerpted from the March 2005 issue of Inc. magazine.

The best market for your product probably doesn’t exist yet, says a new book, Blue Ocean Strategy. After studying 150 examples of innovation, the authors W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne discovered that ultra-successful companies are ones that create new territories (or blue oceans) for their products, rather than competing in existing markets (red oceans) by trimming prices and profits to gain market share. The book cites dozens of prime examples, in both low- and high-tech industries. For instance, Casella Wines lured non wine drinkers into the market with its Yellow Tail brand of moderately priced bottles of shiraz and chardonnay, while Cirque du Soleil targeted theatergoers as its audience instead of duking it out in the circus industry. —Darren Dahl