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A leading business journalist takes us inside a business revolution: the upstart brands taking on the empires that long dominated the trillion-dollar consumer economy.Dollar Shave Club and its hilarious marketing. Casper mattresses popping out of a box. Third Love's lingerie designed specifically for each woman's body. Warby Parker mailing you five pairs of glasses to choose from. You've seen their ads. You (or someone you know) use their products. Each may appear, in isolation, as a rare David with the bravado to confront a Goliath, but taken together they represent a seismic shift in a business model that has lasted more than a century.
As Lawrence Ingrassia--former business and economics editor and deputy managing editor at the
New York Times--shows in this timely and eye-opening book, a growing number of digital entrepreneurs have found new and creative ways to crack the code on the bonanza of physical goods that move through our lives every day. They have discovered that manufacturing, marketing, logistics, and customer service have all been flattened-where there were once walls that protected big brands like Gillette, Sealy, Victoria's Secret, or Lenscrafters, savvy and hungry innovators now can compete on price, value, quality, speed, convenience, and service.
Billion Dollar Brand Club reveals the world of the entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and corporate behemoths battling over this terrain. And what fun it is. It's a massive, high-stakes business saga animated by the personalities, flashes of insight, and stories behind the stuff we use every day.
List of contents
1. Our Blades Are F**king Great
2. The Pied Pipers of Disruption
3. Making It in the World Bazaar
4. Survival of the Fittest
5. From Mad Men to Math Men
6. The Algorithm Is Always Right
7. Eyes on the Customers
8. Delivering the Goods
9. The Mattress Wars
10. Breaking the Sound Barrier
11. Flying High, Then Crashing to Earth
12. Back to the Future?
13. Building a Digital Brand Factory
14. The Brand Is Dead, Long Live the Brand
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
About the author
Lawrence Ingrassia is a former business and economics editor and deputy managing editor at the
New York Times, having previously spent twenty-five years at the
Wall Street Journal, as Boston bureau chief, London bureau chief, money and investing editor, and assistant managing editor. He also served as managing editor of the
Los Angeles Times. The coverage he directed won five Pulitzer Prizes as well as Gerald Loeb Awards and George Polk Awards. His first book,
Billion Dollar Brand Club, chronicles the rise of popular direct-to-consumer e-commerce brands and was shortlisted for several best business book awards for 2020. His book,
A Fatal Inheritance, narrates the tale of a team of dedicated researchers who solved the medical mystery behind seemingly unrelated cancers devastating his and other families. He lives in the Seattle area.
Summary
A leading business journalist takes us inside a business revolution: the upstart brands taking on the empires that long dominated the trillion-dollar consumer economy.
