We admire him because he is the generation’s finest innovator. Elon Musk is leading the world of market and has opened new vistas on how to unlock alpha. Today, he is a leading perfume salesman. Yes, the founder of Tesla, SpaceX, Boring, (keep adding), is the founder of “Burnt Hair” perfume line. In just hours, he has sold 10,000 bottles – and that is $1 million at $100 per bottle.
In this age, core competency while still relevant is largely non-catalytic in most downstream businesses. The most important asset for most businesses is distribution, not supply (I explained here). With Elon’s millions of followers, he can push more perfumes than Burberry, Avon, etc because what could take those firms months to sell, he could sell in hours.
If you want to win in the 21st century digital economy, you must control or influence demand, not supply. In the industrial age economy, power went to gatekeepers of supply. Today, the empire builders are those that control demand. This is possible because digital supply is unbounded and unconstrained, making it largely not a factor. Digital utilities like Google, Facebook, and Twitter which control demand become the new gatekeepers.
Recall Kim Kardashian – she built a $1 billion fashion company: “In 2020, Kardashian sold 20 percent of KKW Beauty to Coty, the French-American multinational beauty company, for $200m in a deal that valued the company at $1bn”. She had no marketing department. She only created a brand, and a company in Asia produces it. As she pushes those on Twitter, Instagram, etc, people buy and another company packages them.
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Largely, she ran a billion dollar business with few staff. Indeed, having the channel to sell perfume, shoes, etc is more important than having the capabilities to actually make perfume, shoes, clothes, etc; you can easily find factories to handle the supply.
Indeed, in the internet age, you win by controlling and influencing demand, not just by providing supply. Elon is influencing demand and does not need to be the best perfume company to thrive!
The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has scented a new opportunity to capitalise on quirky products, launching a perfume called “Burnt Hair” that he said sold 10,000 bottles to earn a million dollars in just a few hours.
“With a name like mine, getting into the fragrance business was inevitable – why did I even fight it for so long!?” Musk asked on Twitter, where he now describes himself as a perfume salesman.
“The essence of repugnant desire” is the website description of his latest offering, which costs $100 a bottle and is set to start shipping in the first quarter of 2023, making good on a product Musk first touted in September.
Previous brainwaves have included Tesla’s (TSLA.O) own-brand tequila, launched in 2020, and a pair of “short shorts” to signify Musk’s victory over investors who bet against the electric vehicle maker, now the world’s most valuable car firm.
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There is a saying that you must strive/fight to know, because when you know, you will be known.
In today’s digital economy, the new fight is to be famous for something, because once you are famous, you can leverage it both vertically and horizontally.
The foundation remains getting that all important breakthrough in being known for something, what happens afterwards could be infinite.
Wow… this is so insightful?