Purple Cow

Purple Cow
list goes on and on. Each company had a breakthrough,
built an empire around it, and then failed to take another
risk.
It used to be easy to coast for a long time after a few
remarkable successes. Disney coasted for decades. Milton
Berle did, too. It’s too easy to decide to sit out the next
round, rationalizing that you’re spending the time and
energy to build on what you’ve got instead of investing in
the future.
Case Study: The Italian Butcher
There are literally thousands of butchers in Italy, but only
one of them is famous (and only one of them is rich).
Dario Cecchini has been profiled in magazine articles and
guidebooks. His 250-year-old butcher shop in Panzano
almost always has a crowd. People come from all over the
world to visit his shop – to hear him quote Dante and
rhapsodize about the Fiorentina beefsteak. When the
European Economic Union banned the sale of steak with
the bones left in (because of the fear of mad cow disease*),
Dario Cecchini held a mock funeral and buried a steak in
front of his store – complete with casket.
Is his meat that much better? Probably not. But by turning
the process of buying meat into an intellectual and
political exercise, Dario has figured out more than one way
to make money from a cow – this time, a purple one.
*Alas, Purple Cow disease is not contagious.
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