Nerd Out on Business

Like Netflix, but for business nerds.

Short addictive breakdowns of weirdly profitable and interesting companies.

Take their tactics. Apply them to your business or career. Scale smarter than your competitors.

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Newsletter pivot....

Newsletter pivot....

I'm taking this newsletter in a new direction, at least temporarily. I'm working on a new project called Fullstack Ag, and I'm going to use this newsletter to profile that project and share my learnings with you.

Nick Horob
Nick Horob
A quiet giant behind modern electronics

A quiet giant behind modern electronics

Amphenol makes connectors and cables most people never see, but engineers rely on them. They are another case study in how getting designed into the manufacturing of other people's products is essentially recurring revenue.

Nick Horob
Nick Horob
The cruise ship spa operator

The cruise ship spa operator

OneSpaWorld runs nearly every spa you’ve seen on a cruise ship, and ~95% of its revenue comes from that single channel. This type of concentration comes with both costs and benefits. Let's take a look.

Nick Horob
Nick Horob
A great product doesn't always save you in a competitive market

A great product doesn't always save you in a competitive market

Li Auto, an EV maker, nailed its target customer persona. They chose to focus on families seeking comfortable and reliable EVs. That focus led to impressive revenue growth and profitability, but the headwinds from competition are blowing strong.

Nick Horob
Nick Horob
A legendary marketer that's gotten crushed

A legendary marketer that's gotten crushed

HubSpot has built one of the most trusted brands in business software. But rising competition, AI-driven workflows, and pressure on seat-based pricing are creating quite the headwind.

Nick Horob
Nick Horob
A poster child for the SasS-pocalypse

A poster child for the SasS-pocalypse

Figma pioneered web-based and collaborative design software. But as AI tools start collapsing design and code into one step, Figma's historical value proposition is changing fast.

Nick Horob
Nick Horob
When your offering is a commodity, loyalty can be the product

When your offering is a commodity, loyalty can be the product

Airlines are brutal businesses with razor-thin margins. Alaska survives by layering a powerful loyalty program on top of a commodity product, creating repeat behavior, better data, and higher-margin revenue.

Nick Horob
Nick Horob
This distributor should do more DTC

This distributor should do more DTC

Central Garden & Pet sells mostly to large retailers. I think they have an untapped asset when it comes to their distribution network and the data that their primary business generates.

Nick Horob
Nick Horob
A Case Study in High Switching Costs

A Case Study in High Switching Costs

Guidewire sells software that insurers rely on to run their most important workflows. The company’s strength comes from being deeply embedded, arguably insulating them from AI-powered pricing pressure

Nick Horob
Nick Horob
The pet app with low switching costs

The pet app with low switching costs

Rover runs a simple pet-care marketplace, one with very low switching costs. but I found a few specific strategies that they smartly used to combat that reality.

Nick Horob
Nick Horob
A unique way to grow a marketplace business

A unique way to grow a marketplace business

Xometry operates a marketplace for custom manufacturing. In many ways, it's a typical double-sided marketplace, but the work they enable opens the door for a rather sticky feature of their product and marketplace. Collaboration.

Nick Horob
Nick Horob
Breaking the Chicken and Egg: How to Bootstrap a Double-Sided Marketplace

Breaking the Chicken and Egg: How to Bootstrap a Double-Sided Marketplace

I profiled Etsy yesterday. They are a prime example of one of the most amazing business models, a double-sided marketplace. But this is an incredibly hard business model to build

Nick Horob
Nick Horob
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