Rating: 5.0 stars
Reviewed by Lori M for Readers Favorite – 04/16/2012
As a graduate-level business professor, I appreciate how Dr. Thurber has expanded upon a theme we often tell students in marketing classes, (i.e. nobody needs buggy whips anymore) and created a book around entrepreneurship that incorporates creativity, innovation, positioning, and disruption. “What does he mean by disruption?” you ask? He defines creative disruption as the process of creating products to obsolete other products. Think about it, didn’t the automobile obsolete horse and buggies and the need for buggy whips? I don’t know whether the author’s intent was to make this a regular nonfiction business book or a textbook, but it could easily be well-suited for either. Thurber does a good job reinforcing his concepts with relevant business articles and internet links and like a good professor, tells you what he’s going to say, says it, and tells you what he said. Well-arranged into different sections and chapters, Thurber takes you through the origin of ideas, his model for disruption, application of concepts, answering the questions of “What If?” and “Who Cares?” and examples of product strategies that include the Segway, Starbucks, the iPod, and more.
The focus of “Do Not Invent Buggy Whips” is the creation of new product concepts and the reality that you sometimes need to reinvent yourself and your products. Thurber wants you to consider not only the innovation of a new product but also the positioning of a new product in order to ensure its success. Great book for people wanting to start their own small business or big businesses wanting to stay viable in today’s economy.