Book SummaryPlay Bigger, by Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, et al.

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Play Bigger

In today’s buying landscape, there’s no room for second-tier companies: The top dog of every market usually reaps all the rewards, leaving other companies competing for scraps. This means every company should strive to become a top dog.

Al Ramadan, Christopher Lochhead, and Dave Peterson of the advisory firm Play Bigger, with the help of business writer Kevin Maney, believe the way to do this is not to create a product that’s merely superior to other products in an existing...

Play Bigger Summary Part 1: Defining Market Design and Market Winners

Let’s first define the authors’ concept of market design and the market winner. It’s worth noting that the authors’ work experiences come primarily from the tech industry. However, they stress that you can apply these lessons to any business.

(Shortform note: The authors are likely correct in asserting that lessons from the tech industry can apply to more traditional companies, simply because the distinction between tech and non-tech businesses is becoming increasingly fuzzy. Most modern companies—like Goldman Sachs, GE, and Exxon—classify themselves as “tech companies,” at least to a certain degree.)

What Is Market Design?

Market design is the act of creating an entirely new market for your product, claim the authors. You do this by devising a novel solution—not a solution that’s just better than other solutions—to an existing or not-yet-existing problem, often completely altering peoples’ lives and lifestyles and rendering old markets obsolete.

(Shortform note: In Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan...

Play Bigger Summary Part 2: The Three Steps of Market Design and Becoming a Market Winner

Now that you know what market design is, why to do it, and what its challenges are, let’s discuss the authors’ three steps of designing your new market and becoming its winner.

Step 1: Identify Your Market

The authors write that the first step of designing your market and becoming its winner is to identify your market by pinpointing an unmet need in peoples’ lives or a new way for your existing technology to fill an unmet need. At your low-tech company, you might identify the unmet need for less intrusive technology. Your market, then, becomes the market for low-tech devices.

(Shortform note: An additional way you might identify an unmet need in peoples’ lives is by thinking about what prevents consumers from purchasing products in your industry. Is there something consumers aren’t yet getting from existing offerings and which you might turn into a market? However, if employing this strategy, be sure you take the extra step to devise a new market. Otherwise, you might simply create a better product that fulfills that unmet need without positioning it...

Play Bigger Summary Part 3: Remaining the Market Winner

Now that you’ve solidified your market in customers’ minds and made yourself that market’s winner, the authors explain how to remain the long-term market winner in two steps: 1) by expanding your market or creating another new market and 2) by establishing a flywheel effect in that market.

The authors claim that you must complete the first step because e​​very company eventually reaches most customers in its market and must either create a new market or expand its current market to continue growing. Companies must do this over and over to remain market winners. For instance, you’ll eventually reach all customers who want to minimize their tech use in your low-tech devices market and might therefore expand that market to include customers who not only want to be on their phones less, but also want to use more analog products, by selling paper agendas, notepads, and so on.

Expand Your Market Quickly by Blitzscaling

In Blitzscaling, Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh agree with the authors on the need to expand your market (or scale up) to remain a long-term winner but add that...

Shortform Exercise: Practice Expressing Your Company’s Take

Define your personal take to practice expressing your company’s take.

Write down three qualities or traits that are an important part of your identity. (For instance, these might be 1) sense of humor, 2) generosity, and 3) open-mindedness.)