Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by chrysemys
Billion Dollar Brand Club: How Dollar Shave Club, Warby Parker, and Other Disruptors Are Remaking What We Buy by Lawrence Ingrassia
3.0
3.5*
Lots of stories about so-called disruptors in the realm of consumer products, a few about meta-disruptors servicing the needs of these direct-to-consumer startups.
While each story was, in its details, different from the others, the general storyline was-- someone from outside an industry notices a problem, has the audacity to start a company to address the issue using new(er) technology and internet-based business practices, makes bank while the old guard in the industry is slow to catch on. The implicit message was something like "serves them right for their hubris" and "hooray for these new guys for figuring out how to do this better."
I was disappointed that there was no real discussion about how the disruption of industry is painful for the people being replaced and what this massive shift in the way we buy goods and services means to the overall labor force and society in general. Not all in-person shopping experiences were as traumatic as buying a mattress or a bra: for example, small brick-and-mortar bookstores were among the first victims of the online revolution. And, although this book was about the market for retail goods, other forms of "disruption" are catastrophic, e.g. the effect that the likes of Airbnb have had on the real estate market. Disruption produces unintended consequences and it would have been a more honest book if Ingrassia had more closely examined the darker side of disruption rather than only writing an homage to several companies selling things in new ways.
Lots of stories about so-called disruptors in the realm of consumer products, a few about meta-disruptors servicing the needs of these direct-to-consumer startups.
While each story was, in its details, different from the others, the general storyline was-- someone from outside an industry notices a problem, has the audacity to start a company to address the issue using new(er) technology and internet-based business practices, makes bank while the old guard in the industry is slow to catch on. The implicit message was something like "serves them right for their hubris" and "hooray for these new guys for figuring out how to do this better."
I was disappointed that there was no real discussion about how the disruption of industry is painful for the people being replaced and what this massive shift in the way we buy goods and services means to the overall labor force and society in general. Not all in-person shopping experiences were as traumatic as buying a mattress or a bra: for example, small brick-and-mortar bookstores were among the first victims of the online revolution. And, although this book was about the market for retail goods, other forms of "disruption" are catastrophic, e.g. the effect that the likes of Airbnb have had on the real estate market. Disruption produces unintended consequences and it would have been a more honest book if Ingrassia had more closely examined the darker side of disruption rather than only writing an homage to several companies selling things in new ways.