"Focus, divergence, and a compelling tagline" - or how to win in a competitive market

Hey all,

Was listening to Blue Ocean Strategy on audiobook today and thought I'd share a valuable nugget.

The objective of a "Blue Ocean Strategy" is to create new demand in an existing market, thereby winning where there is competition by, paradoxically, not competing. It's akin to Peter Thiel's mindset of "competition is for losers".

Just came by a section, where the authors describe a litmus test to know when you have a "Blue Ocean" business - "focus, divergence and a compelling tagline"

• Focus: your business is very good on a few dimensions, but not all. This implies you must punt on some dimensions where your competition is strong
• Divergence: your business has strengths that your competition hasn't even considered (or if they have considered it, they've previously dismissed it - i.e. one man's trash is another man's treasure)
• A compelling tagline: the dimensions upon which you are strong and those which you are weak, come together to form a catchy, tagline. Among existing customers, it triggers a response of "I wouldn't want that, but can see others who would" and an "oh, of course" response in a new group of customers.

As I'm thinking about my own business (and entering extremely competitive waters!) I plan to use this litmus test frequently. Hopefully, it'll be useful for others as well.