What business are you in?

I recently watched Michael Eisner's show on CNBC (called 'Conversations', I think) in which he hosted Mark Cuban.

Mark had one of the best entrepreneurial sentences I've ever heard:

When I bought the Mavericks, everyone in the organization thought we were in the business of basketball. But we aren't. We're in the business of "Honey, what do you want to do tonight?"

Bingo!!

It's so easy to describe what business *you* think you're in. The trick is to define the business *your customers* see you in. It's not about what your product does, or which cool features it has. It's all about understanding which piece of attention of your customers you're fighting for, and who are the others trying to get that same slice of attention.

This has got to be the #1 mistake entrepreneurs make (and I'm speaking from personal experience...) - falling in love with their product/features and believing that the product is the business they're in. This must be the silent killer of startups because it's such a huge mistake that's so easy to go unnoticeable...

Cuban, as usual, nails it.