Science and Nature thought it was good too:

The Biology of Cancer is no doubt the definitive statement on its topic today. -Science, 11 August 2006: Vol. 313. no. 5788

There is no comparable text in cancer biology and no single book that is so current and informative. -Nature, November 30, 2006, Vol 444

I was just struck by how dated popular cancer treatment is in comparison to new discoveries in cancer research. It’s far from an uplifting read but unfortunately a very important one for all of us.

Robert A. Weinberg is MIT Professor known for his brilliance in research of oncogenes and the genetic basis of human cancer.

If your hand is up, you can relate…

The summaries come in various formats, audio included.

Deadly Crash on the TTM (Time To Market) Highway

It’s almost as a side note of little significance, that Steven Gary Blanks in his brilliant book The Four Steps to the Epiphany (p 136), talks about the fallacy of “First Mover Advantage”. Worthy of serious discussion, I’d like to dedicate this post to this notion. It has driven too many promising startups to exceed the speed limit, loose control and end up in a deadly crash on the TTM (Time To Market) highway. The phrase “First Mover Advantage” was first popularized in a 1988 paper by a Stanford Business School professor, David Montgomery and his co-author, Martin Leiberman. Only 10 short years later, in a 1998 retrospective paper, the authors backed off from their claims. Blank: “By then it was too late. It’s misreading by some Silicon Valley VCs who had Montgomery as their business school professor, was used to justify the wanton and reckless ‘get big fast’ strategies of dot-com startups” … “this one phrase was the theoretical underpinning to the out of control spending of startups”.

Pioneers Get the “Advantage” of 47% Failure Rate

In the 1993 Journal of Market Research article Pioneer Advantage: Marketing Logic or Marketing Legend? the question of “First Mover Advantage” is revisited and approximately 500 brands in 50 product categories are analyzed. The results show that 47%, almost half, of the market pioneers fail and their mean market share is much lower than that found in other studies. Early market leaders on the other hand, have much greater long-term success and failure rate of only 8%. Leadership dynamics in the US Auto Manufacturer market is just one example of the above findings. Ford, the first to mass produce cars in the US, soon lost it’s lead to GM and now both gradually lose market share to Toyota’s continuing upward momentum.

That’s The Rub. First ≠ Leader.

Too ofter, “First Mover Advantage” is taken literally, driving entrepreneurs to put all their resources in being first to move – first to put a product on the shelf. Blinded by the promise of long term victory, many burn out quickly, before they even understand the driving forces of the new market they’ve entered. What we should be aiming for, is Leader Advantage. Or, as Ries and Trout show with countless examples in The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, sustainable market advantage is achieved by those who follow “The Law of Leadership” and successfully position their product FIRST in the customer’s MIND. If all it took to win was to be the first to move, most competitive sports would be dead boring to play, moreover to watch. Similarly, it’s true understanding of the type of market you’re entering, compatible penetration strategy and agility, that makes a winner. Next time you hear praises of “The First Mover Advantage” remember the famous saying: “You can always tell who the pioneers are because they have arrows in their back and are lying face down in the dirt.”

“I always wondered…
when a butterfly leaves the safety of it’s cocoon,
does it realize how beautiful I has become,
or does it still just see itself as a caterpillar?”

This is the opening monologue of a brilliant movie I saw last night, The Air I Breathe. It’s based on an ancient Chinese proverb that breaks life down into four emotional cornerstones: happiness, pleasure, sorrow and love. Here’s the trailer:

Click here to view the embedded video.



The monologue continues with:

“When I was a kid, I knew the secret to a happy life.
Play by the rules, work hard in school.
And if you work hard in school,
then your reward is… more school.
And after more school,
you are given the best that life has to offer,
a job and money and a future,
filled with unending pursuit of more…”

It was amazing that of all movies, and on a night it was my spouse’s turn to choose, I should watch the one that raises the exact same questions that have been going through my mind all past week.

At some point in the movie (I don’t want to spoil it for you), Brendan Fraser says: “Some people believe in coincidences. I’m not one of them.” This, on the day I finished reading Deepak Chopra’s book about harnessing the power of coincidence, gets speacial meaning.

Better together: (the movie) The Air I Breathe and (the book) The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire