Framework

Six Determinants of Company Success

A ranked framework for evaluating whether a company can win, in descending order of importance: timing (the least controllable but most decisive factor), market (the ability to expand into an ever-larger addressable market), team (complementary strengths that offset each other's weaknesses), product (the core value delivered to customers), brand (trust that, once lost, is very hard to rebuild), and distribution (the ability to get the offering to scale). All six are necessary; lacking any one undermines the odds of winning.