(source: Sketching User Experiences)

It wasn't just deeply thought-out design that made the iPod a hit, either-the bigger distribution strategy is what drove it home. Companies like Gillette sell razors at a loss and make money back on the blades. The iPod flipped this traditional profit model upside-down. Apple didn't make money by selling songs, but by selling the hardware.

In a 2006 interview with Businessweek, Clayton Christensen predicted the downfall of the iPod: "But once the technology matures and becomes good enough, industry standards emerge... At that point, the competitive advantage of the early leader dissipates, and the ability to make money migrates to whoever controls the performance-defining subsystem."

Christensen was almost right. What ended up killing the iPod wasn't a cheaper knockoff. It was Apple's iPhone. Where the iPod began with the idea that you could carry thousands of songs in your pocket, the iPhone crystalized the idea that you only want one thing in your pocket.

Cannibalizing your own product is a side effect of thinking deeply. This is something that companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook have always known. When you get complacent, someone else comes along and builds the next thing better.

(source: Ben Barry)

Instead of trying to protect your own turf, focus on building products that ly around the problem and the market, rather than just how well they sell.