Foreword
by Perry Marshall x
Preface
by Richard Koch xiii
Preface
by Greg Lockwood xvii
The Secret Red Thread ixx
How to Simplify xxv
Part 1 Great Simplifiers
1. The Man Who Democratized Travel 3
Results 10
Key Points 11
2. The Billionaire Who Travels by Bus 12
How Can IKEA Be So Much Cheaper? 13
How IKEA Seduces Its Customers 17
Results 20
Key Points 21
3. The Assembly Line of Food 22
Results 30
Key Points 31
4. Victory Over Big Brother: The Real Story of 1984 33
Which Type of Simplifying is Better? 41
Results 43
Key Points 44
5. The Strategy Simplifies 45
Results 56
Key Points 57
6. Taxi! The Brave New World of Apps 59
Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp: Uber 60
The Samwer Brothers: Easy Taxi 60
Daniel Ek: Spotify 69
Joe Gebbia: Airbnb 71
Back to Uber: Results 73
Key Points 74
7. The Two Strategies and Their Trade-offs 76
Three Precepts for the Price-Simplifier 79
Two Precepts for the Proposition-Simplifier 80
Making Clever Trade-Offs 81
Virtuous Trade-Offs 83
A Visit to London Zoo 85
Key Points from Part One 90
Conclusion 91
Part 2 How to Simplify
8. Which Type of Simplifier Will You Be? 95
The Attitude Test 96
Scoring 104
The Gap Test 105
The Key Tests 112
Keys in Price-Simplifying 113
Keys in Proposition-Simplifying 114
The Better Skills Test 115
Key Points 120
9. How to Proposition-Simplify 122
Step 1: Easier to Use 124
Step 2: More Useful 129
Step 3: More Aesthetically Appealing 132
Are Free Services Price- or Proposition-Simplifying? 134
Conclusion 136
Key Points 137
10. How to Price-Simplify Part I: Product Redesign 139
How to Spark a Price Revolution 143
Redesign the Product 144
11. How to Price-Simplify Part II: Business System Redesign and Scale Up 153
Redesign the Business System to Transform Your Industry 154
Scale Up 171
Conclusion 172
Key Points for Chapters 10 and 11 172
Part 3 Save The Dinosaurs?
12. Do They Need Saving? 177
Warning Signals Test 180
Key Points 183
13. The Weakness of Strong Firms: Five Bad Reasons Why Managers Don't Simplify 184
The Overhead Trap 185
The Cannibalization Trap 187
The Customer Trap 191
The Complexity Trap 194
The Skills Trap 196
Key Points 199
14. How Market Leaders Can Simplify Without Tears 201
Countering Price-Simplifying 203
Countering Proposition-Simplifying 208
Counter Price- and Proposition-Simplifying 210
Is the Penny Dropping About Acquiring Proposition-Simplifiers? 211
Key Points 212
Part 4 The Rewards of Simplifying
15. Does Price-Simplifying Pay? 215
Ford 216
McDonald's 219
Southwest Airlines 221
IKEA 223
Charles Schwab 225
Honda 227
16. Does Proposition-Simplifying Pay? 231
Amazon 232
Google 238
Apple (the iPod Years) 239
ARM 242
Tetra Pak 243
The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) 245
17. The Success of Simplifying: An Archaeological Dig 248
How Do the Companies Fare in Terms of Increasing Their Market Value? 276
How Do the Companies Fare in Terms of Annual Increase in Value? 256
How Do the Companies Fare in Terms of Outperformance of Their Rivals? 258
Industry-Wide Simplifying 260
Conclusions 263
18. The Limitations, Power, and Glory of Simplifying 267
Are There Any Viable Non-Simplifying Strategies? 268
Simplifying in the Big Picture 275
The Next Steps for Entrepreneurs 280
Next Steps for Corporate CEOs 281
Endnotes 283
Acknowledgments 293
About the Authors 297
Index 299