Why Businesses Fail? S01E05

The One Trick Pony Or, How Lack of Product Development and Innovation can lead to business failure

If we scan the pages of business history, we will find many organizations that once dominated the market segments they operated in. But over time, they simply faded away. The reason in most cases was lack of innovation or ability to adapt to changing market conditions.

Focus on a single product or a service is not a bad way of doing business. In high precision industries such as medicine, optics as well as technology services, there are many great organizations who excel at doing one thing, and one thing right. But reliance on a single product over a long period can prove detrimental to the business. The title of this episode is derived from a popular term in the United States - a One Trick Pony. The term draws from the era when entertainers in circuses or fairs used to display a variety of tricks to wow the audience. Out of a quiver full of tricks, one or two used to wow the audience, and they used to keep coming back for more. But what if there was a show horse or a Pony who could perform only one trick? The Audience might visit the Act once, maybe twice. But that would pretty much be it.
We use this term in this episode to describe a company that depends on a single product or service for its survival. Listen to this episode of Why Businesses Fail to get a deeper perspective on this topic.