Tomorrow's lawsuits start here

I've written for years about the failure of the biggest companies failing in the most fundamental ways, like here, here, and here. 

And now there's this. East Carolina University Suing Cisco Systems Over Slogan ‘Tomorrow Starts Here'.

Simple due diligence. C'mon people. If you're gonna steal, don't steal from a client. And if you steal from a client, at least make sure it's a good slogan. This doesn't even pass the 'bakery and bedpans' test.

Fast and cheap and unsuccessful

New entrepreneurs. Committed to a diet of macaroni, peanut butter and cases of Mountain Dew for late night 'ideation' sessions. They tell me they're going to be better... because they're faster and cheaper. 

Copying what has been done before in a way that is faster or cheaper is a formula for long-term failure.

Faster and cheaper is not better. Better is better.  

Instead, the success formula is a disruption - a new way to look at things, a new way to define your market. Faster and cheaper is a natural order of established markets, so start-ups dedicated to this proposition will be overrun. Even if you go 'all-in', spend all the angel's money, live a life of sleep-deprived sacrifice to build the mousetrap, there is no guarantee of success if all you are chasing is a faster or cheaper way to do an old thing. Faster and cheaper are only useful long-term when they are outgrowths of the new and differentiated.

If all your new idea offers is a faster or cheaper way to do an old thing, think again.  

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