Wow a post 2 days in the week! Shocking for me as well. And while I am breaking away from the pattern from sharing anything on Friday - I came across a really nice ‘non-producty but still product’ article that I wanted to share.
I have worked in furniture ecommerce as a PM and I know how notoriously tough it is - large shipments, high AOV, low frequency yet high emotional involvement product. Even with the smartest people in our team, we struggled. While we were trying to crack ecommerce - Ikea launched their first store in India. It was a huge deal in the Indian furniture space and naturally we were also intrigued being a direct competitor.
However given the self serve ethos of Ikea - we really thought they would not survive in the Indian market. 5 years on and Ikea has not only survived - it has cracked the Indian consumer better than any local. It is a great case study on knowing your consumer which can be applied in online product as well. I really enjoyed reading their customer first mindset of cracking the market.
On a side note - the company I worked for got sold at a tenth of its peak valuation - showing why some times big firms are big for a reason.