Entrepreneur

Coca Cola actually started as a painkiller - it was originally medicine.

Our brains are wired to avoid discomfort and this how Spa's earn $. It's so easy to sell on the grounds of fun and pleasure cuz no one consciously wants to say "no" to them. No one NEEDS a Ferrari but it's fun and sexy.

There's also something to be said for having enough startup cash to be able to shut down or outlast everyone else selling painkillers, vitamins and candy. Or going to the painkiller tree in someone else's backyard and chopping it down.

I look at this as though all products and services exist to provide happiness. Whether that happiness is derived through junk food or heart surgery, each product is either making you feel good or feel less bad.

Are you Kevin Fong?

Or a vitamin infused candy painkiller

There are 3 types of products-

Nice

If you're aiming for a fast-growing startup, and you want to be innovative and disruptive, you should aim for painkillers. Fast-growth requires a lot of people to make big commitments to your product, which means they have to see a lot of benefit to it.

Vitamins and candy tend to be lifestyle businesses. You innovate a little bit on a known good formula, make a slightly better product than everyone else, and slowly grow your market share. That's a perfectly viable path, people just don't tend to talk about it very much because it's not very exciting. The painkiller startups get a lot more attention.

Introducing Vitamin PainCandy, the first product that supports optimal health while helping to dull central nervous system pain receptors with a delightful flavour burst.

I threw in the weasel words to make it more real.

Three good categories, I'd throw in the jtbd ( jobs-to-be-done) framework of a customer hiring for functional / emotional / social jobs!

My mom taught me there are two radio stations people listen to WIFM ( Whats in it for me) & MMFGAM ( make me feel good about myself), so thats another way to look at it, maybe layer it with..

I'll buy something which makes my life easier that.. Save's me time Save me money Makes me look good ( status)

To me it's all about hiring ( buying) products & services that align with what we feel looks and feels like a progress pathway to our next best version of ourselves ( through hundreds of NBA - Next Best Actions we take which we are either following a blueprint ( taught to us by parents / family... Nurture) or societal Norms or role models / false idols.. When reality "life itself" ( great movie BTW) is an unreliable narrator and we are simply fumbling our way thru learning how to live life! ( our daily 1440 min / 1% of our day is 14 min - apply this to creating new habits / n' stacking)

Trust me I'm still learning and buying products I envision helping to build a happier index version of myself! ( constant iteration)

Love this analogy, you come up with it?