Patrick Lefler
Patrick Lefler
Patrick Lefler is the founder of The Spruance Group -- a management consultancy that helps growing companies grow faster by providing unique value at the product level: specifically product marketing, pricing, and innovation. He is a former Marine Corps officer; a graduate of both Annapolis and The Wharton School, and has over twenty years of industry expertise.
Charles Kaman: Helicopter innovator and acoustic guitar inventor
Today's New York Times ran the obituary of a true innovator - Charles H. Kaman who died this past Monday at the age of...
The most innovative passenger ship ever
The legendary ocean liner S.S. United States was in the news today when it was announced that the preservationist group S.S. United States Conservatory...
Four keys to a sucessful freemium model
Earlier in the week, we talked about some of the challenges that online-billing company Chargify faced when they decided to discard their freemium pricing...
The pitfalls of having nonpaying customers
For the thousands of start-ups who use a freemium model (free service) to entice customers to sign up, the moment of truth eventually comes...
LivingSocial promotes Amazon…or is it the other way around?
LivingSocial, one of many deal-of-the-day websites that have sprouted up over the past few years (and a major competitor of Groupon) was in the...
Why you need to ignore cost during your initial pricing discussion…
More times than not, pricing decisions for new products are based more on internal production costs and less on the value of the actual...
Incremental innovation…and the evolution of sailing ships
Incremental innovation is more about improvement rather than what one thinks of as true innovation. The changes associated with incremental innovation are neither substantial...
Will merchants still feel the love for Groupon a year from now?
High-flying internet startup Groupon has been in the news lately. First, its well-publicized rejection of Google's almost $6 Billion offer this past December stunned...
William Taylor and golf’s greatest innovation
Take a look at any golf ball today and the one constant you'll notice immediately is that every ball has dimples. It doesn't matter...
Innovation and creative destruction
Did you know that at the turn of the last century in 1900, there were over 100,000 workers employed in this country as carriage...
Understanding value
Here's one of my favorite stories. I've run across it a number of different times - this version comes from Jack Trout and his...
Incorporating loss aversion into your sales pitch
Loss aversion refers to the tendency of most people to strongly prefer avoiding losses as opposed to acquiring gains. And this emotional difference between...
The pricing model change for broadband
Peter Burrows of Bloomberg Businessweek has written a great piece this week on how the crushing demands of video delivery and mobile devices are...
Managing Failure with ‘skin in the game’
Most conversations involving new ventures talk about the importance of founders or leaders having ‘skin in the game’ - a term first coined by...
Managing failure
Failure is inevitable for most new ventures. It's inevitable because the high risks involved for most new ventures make success difficult to achieve; if...
Is Amazon’s Prime Service worth $79?
© Amazon.com Interesting article written by Brad Stone in this week's Bloomberg Businessweek magazine that dissects Amazon.com's shipping service, Amazon Prime, which guarantees delivery of...
How Malcom McLean saved the shipping industry
In the mid-1950s, the ocean-going shipping industry was struggling to survive. The growing air freight business was gaining market share; costs of ocean shipping...
Here’s how Netflix’s pricing model reinforces strategy changes
Netflix, which has already conquered Blockbuster in the DVD-rental business, is now focusing its resources on winning online video services. In an announcement yesterday,...
Cyrus McCormick’s real innovation
Cyrus McCormick--known for having invented the first mechanical reaper in 1833--was actually not the first. That honor went to Obed Hussey who announced construction...
Fosbury’s innovative flop
Up until the 1960s, most elite high jumpers used similar techniques--the Straddle, the Western roll or the Scissors-jump--all characterized by giving the jumper the...