You may have read some version of the recent Tech Crunch article by Tom Goodwin that began with this observation.

“Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate.”

There’s a lot of buzz around the Internet and in business publications about how businesses win by owning the customer interface—in other words, the environments where people go to interact and transact. But I think we’re missing something when we talk about the value of platforms and the ease at which anyone with a laptop and an Internet connection can build ‘the next big thing.’

The code isn’t the hard part.
Understanding what people want and value enough to pay for it is the hard part.

Uber’s founders, Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp realised that people would pay for, and become loyal to a company that offered the convenience and certainty of a reliable transport solution.
I remember arriving at JFK airport one Friday evening as a storm hit. By the time I cleared immigration there was a line of two hundred people snaking around arrivals waiting for a cab.
You have never seen so many people trying to download an app all at once.

Not one of the companies that are grabbing headlines, from Uber to Airbnb started with a product or service. They started with the potential customer’s value story. The same is true for the most popular cafe in your neighbourhood and the Etsy store people always return to.

You create and market a successful product or service by figuring out your customer’s value story.

If you’d like to grow your business by understanding what people want and how to tell them the story they want to hear The Story Strategy Course will show you how. Registration is open now.

Image by Guillaume David