If there’s one thing the Americans are good at, it’s business. They have got it down to a fine art. Take the list of the most powerful companies and of the richest entrepreneurs in the world and the US dominates each. In fact take any industry or vertical sector, and we’re willing to bet that the US is top. So what is it about them that makes them so good at business and what can we learn?
The US was nicely summed up in a speech given by Marathon Oil director, lawyer, marketeer and former US Ambassador to the UK Philip Lader. “America’s trademark openness to innovation warrants emulation. New discoveries are welcomed; risk-takers are celebrated. On any given day, 6% of the adult US population is trying to start their own business. That explains how, in 1995, 13% of American employees worked for businesses which did not even exist in 1990.” So what should we and can we emulate? Over the next few pages we’ve taken some key points on the US and expanded on them. However, this is no substitute for going there. If you really want to learn, get on a plane. It’s cheap and we guarantee you’ll come back full of ideas.
The Latest Craze
The most obvious thing to learn from the US is what sells and what doesn’t. If you look at any major niche you’ll find that the US has done it first, yet when it comes to moving out to the rest of the world there are very few US companies that will move out further. Why would you bother when you have the largest market on your doorstep?
However, examples of people who’ve gone to the US and brought ideas back are legion. The smoothie market only exists in the UK because Harry Cragoe of PJ Smoothies happened to be at a beach party in California and came across these fantastic new drinks. The UK market for them is now worth £80m a year and growing fast.
Coffee Republic co-founder Bobby Hashemi came up the with idea for the company from a visit to Seattle where you’d find coffee shops on every street corner, and people were addicted to things called lattes. Not all US trends are guaranteed to move to the rest of the world quite so easily, and the US can, and will bite back.
Internet auction site eBay launched in 1995 and FT journalist Tim Jackson saw how well it was doing and launched it’s UK equivalent QXL. QXL did well for a few years until eBay’s French-born founder Pierre Omidyar decided to look at what was happening back in his native Europe, so he passed on control of eBay to Hasbro executive Margaret Whitman and went to Europe.
In an article in Business Week in 2000, QXL chief executive James Rose said: “QXL has the lead, with 5% of the audience, compared with eBay’s 1.2%. eBay will end up being No. 2, but not more.” Since then QXL has had a name change to QXL Ricardo and has gone on to be successful in niche markets such as Denmark, Norway and Switzerland, but it’s a very small player in the UK. However, the overwhelming product placement publicity on US TV and cinema means things that do happen in the US will get a lot of free publicity. Coffee Republic probably owes some of its success to Niles and Frasier Crane’s weekly chat around the perfect Latte.