The Loss Leader · Business Model
Polaroid Built the Perfect Razor-and-Blades Machine. Then Digital Removed the Blade.
Polaroid's film threw off margins executives projected as high as 70%, with cameras as the delivery vehicle. The model didn't fail because Polaroid missed digital - by 1989 it spent 42% of R&D on it. It failed because the whole company was built to defend a consumable digital deleted.
8 min