Simplify: How the Best Businesses in the World Succeed
Richard Koch & Greg Lockwood
“Are you ready to become the next market leader? Investor and successful entrepreneur Richard Koch and venture capitalist Greg Lockwood have spent years researching what makes successful companies—such as IKEA, Apple, Uber, and Airbnb—achieve game-changing who status. The answer is simple: They Simplify. Take Your Business from Startup to Game Changer. Start simplifying today.”
This book talks you through two different ways of simplifying your business in terms of your businesses market share and target customers. The two ways are either price or proposition simplifying. I liked the authors’ methods and reasoning, as well as how they explained the two simplifying techniques. They gave in depth examples of 12 businesses which they continued to refer to throughout the book. At some points I wanted to hear an example of another business not the same 12, but at other times it was good to have consistency.
It was great to read an in-depth case study about each business. I always enjoy those parts of the real examples (although I also like allegories – eg. Death by Meeting). However the final chapters in this book seemed quite repetitive. The position that was largely presented was that the authors preferred price simplifying even though their examples were balanced of 6 businesses of each type. Perhaps I just wanted to hear more about the proposition simplifying. Also a lot of the examples or even explanations were on products, where I would have liked to have more service businesses. That being said, a lot of business books are geared more to products in general, so perhaps I set my expectations too high.
I recommend it for anyone in business. At any stage in business you should know what market you are focusing on – this will give you a pertinent reminder to keep it simple. I don’t feel any need to read it again, partly because the authors covered everything well. So 4 out of 5 stars for me.
