Different
by Youngme Moon · first published 2010
100% recommend
Why HN recommends it
Argues that companies stand out by refusing to compete on the category's usual features, with organized business case studies showing how; useful for product strategy and finding a niche in crowded markets.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Why trying to be the best ... competing like crazy ... makes you mediocreEvery few years a book--through a combination of the author's unique voice, storytelling ability, wit, and insight--simply breaks the mold. Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods is one example. Richard Feynman's "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" is another.Now comes Youngme Moon's Different, a book for "people who don't read business books." Actually, it's more like a personal conversation with a friend who has thought deeply about how the world works ... and who gets you to see that world in a completely new light. If the
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…competitors product. That's why you have Audi's advertising about their safety record, and Volkswagon's advertising about their performance features. A great read on this topic is Youngme Moon's book different: http://www.amazon.com/Different-Escaping-Competitive-Youngme...
on “From $0-100million with no sales people. Atlassian's commandments for startups.” ↗Different [1] is one of my favorite books on how to find a unique niche in crowded markets. It is written by a (brilliant) marketing professor but is useful for product strategy. Also see Blue Ocean Strategy [2]…
on “Andy Rubin Puts Essential Up for Sale, Cancels Next Phone” ↗Love Made to Stick and Founders at Work. I haven't read 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, but I'll check it out, thanks. One excellent marketing book I recently read is Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd by Youngme Moon (no ref link: http://www.amazon.com/Different-Escaping-Competitive-Youngme...). She believes that going tit-for-tat on adding features and augmentations…
on “Secret Hacker Bookshelf” ↗"Different" by Youngme Moon. This book was given out at the Business of Software 2010 conference, and she also spoke there. It's basically a call to arms for meaningful differentiation with organized business…
on “Ask HN: Best book you read in 2010 and briefly why” ↗I really like the book Different by Youngme Moon.
on “Books on Entrepreneurship” ↗Very true. And vice versa is actually a pretty neat idea. Youngme Moon who I mention in the article has a book called Different which I highly recommend. She's got a bit in there about differentiating yourself by making it insanely easy for people to leave your service. Most folks make it hard to even find a cancel link (I know…
on “Group email address. Did 37signals copy my idea?” ↗There's a wonderful book out there called "Different" by Professor Youngme Moon [1] which details a few cases like what you said. Her book is about how companies can be different One case that comes to mind is Ikea with this DIY approach. Is it the most…
on “A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)” ↗Youngme Moon, in her book "Different", offers the idea that one should say Yes where others say No, and No where others say Yes to produce meaningful difference. Once you go this way, you iterate and improve on the ways you say Yes to accentuate…
on “Steve Yegge v. Rich Hickey re: "Clojure just needs to start saying Yes"” ↗