I read "Blue Ocean Strategy". And no blue ocean exists.

When I started reading the book, I expected to find some special way to create markets without competitors. I read it — and my conclusion turned out a bit different.

In essence, the "blue ocean" is not a new market that suddenly appears out of nowhere. It's an attempt to stop competing with strong players by the accepted rules of the market and find a different competitive advantage.

If everyone makes a complex product with dozens of features — try making a simple one.

If you have a simple product — complicate it.

If everyone sells expensive — try making it cheap.

If everyone sells cheap — sell expensive.


But what I remembered most from the book was not even this thesis, but the Analysis of non-customers.

Because usually product teams do exactly the opposite. We study current customers. We build CJM. We conduct in-depth interviews. We look at analytics. We ask what features are missing. We try to increase NPS and retention.

This is necessary, but the multiple growth of the business is elsewhere. These people already use our product. It is much more effective to look at those who do not use it.

🟢 Why did a person try the product and give up?
🟢 Why do they choose a competitor?
🟢 Why have they never even considered your product?

And here sometimes the most interesting things come to light. For example, a restaurant may consider other restaurants as its competitors and compare menus, prices, and interiors with them. But in the evening, a person chooses not between restaurant No. 1 and restaurant No. 2.

They choose: between going to a restaurant, ordering food home, going to the movies, going to the park, staying home and watching a series.

Because their task may be not "to eat", but "to have a good evening". And then your real competitor is not the one you've been analyzing for years.

Perhaps this is the main tool I took from the book: sometimes it is more useful to conduct ten interviews with people who will never buy your product than another ten interviews with your regular customers.


Because growth is often found not within the current audience, but beyond it.

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