An important aspect of understanding your business ecosystem is knowing your position within it (positioning), whether you hold a higher or lower (subordinate) role, and whether your offerings are substitutes or complements. Netflix started as a DVD rental service. With the rise of online streaming, Netflix saw it as a replacement for DVD rentals. Kimbap and Ramen are complementary goods, but Ramen and Udon are substitutes. This is why, even when setting up a snack bar, paying attention to the menu is crucial. Complementary goods increase sales, while substitutes are more likely to lead to no change or even a decline in sales. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”
Let’s think about it this way. If you run a business and only make one transaction per day, chances are you won’t keep a record of those transactions because you can remember them. However, if there are hundreds of transactions in a year, or even in a single day, will you be able to remember all those transactions? A business makes a profit , but do you know how much you have earned or how much you’ve lost? After all, if we don’t keep the books, we can’t know the profit or loss. Those book records are called financial statements ( balance sheets ). You can do business without reading and understanding financial statements, but you’re just doing the hard-working, foolish thing without knowing the real content of the business. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”