Stitch Fix charged $20 for a box, then credited it against anything you kept
Stitch Fix charged a $20 styling fee, credited against any purchase, to make discovery-based shopping work.
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3,236 PUBLISHED CASES · REGULARLY UPDATEDThomas Cook invented the package tour by bundling train, meal, arrangements
Thomas Cook bundled train, meal, and arrangements into one prepaid ticket, turning non-travelers into tourists.
Read the caseTopps signed players, not cards, to own baseball card monopoly
Topps signed ballplayers for exclusive likeness rights, so rivals had no one to print.
Read the caseYellow Tail won US by selling to non-wine-drinkers
Casella Wines launched Yellow Tail for non-wine-drinkers, stripping wine jargon, and it became the top US import in two years.
Read the caseKarnataka insured farmers by deducting premiums from milk money
Devi Shetty and Karnataka's cooperatives insured 1.6M farmers by deducting 60-rupee premiums from milk payments.
Read the caseZillow gave home valuations away free and charged the agents who benefit
Zillow gave home valuations away free and charged the agents who benefit.
Read the caseZipcar rented cars by the hour with a card that unlocked the car
Zipcar made hourly rental viable by replacing the counter with an RFID card unlock, cutting overhead.
Read the caseGraniterock let customers short-pay invoices to prove quality
Graniterock printed on invoices that unhappy customers could cross off items and pay less, making quality promises self-enforcing.
Read the casePrice Club made membership fee the profit, goods at cost
Price Club charged an annual membership fee and sold goods at near-cost, making the fee the profit and the low prices the product.
Read the caseDove paid creators to amplify honest reviews, negative kept
Dove paid creators to amplify their followers' honest reviews, negative included, so praise carried no paid motive.
Read the caseLuckin dropped its scripted film and filmed the real flatbread stall next door
Luckin, facing a viral clip of a flatbread stall, ditched the scripted ad and filmed the real scene, letting the slogan surface in the street.
Read the caseArtists floated a stocked store onto Toronto harbor, no sales allowed
Artists floated a stocked store onto Toronto harbor, no entry or sales, making it a landmark.
Read the caseXXXX paid you in beer to watch seagrass grow
XXXX paid people in beer vouchers to watch a seagrass livestream, turning boredom into a paid task that funded reef restoration.
Read the caseUwant re-issued street cats under ancient poetic names
Uwant re-issued street cats under ancient poetic names and awarded them trophies, shifting perceived value without changing the cats.
Read the case3M let a failed glue find its problem
3M chemist Silver's weak glue found a use when a colleague's bookmark problem matched it.
Read the caseAgathocles burned his fleet to force his army forward
Agathocles, besieged at Syracuse, landed a small force in Africa and burned his ships so his men could only advance.
Read the caseAggreko guaranteed World Cup power without building a plant
Aggreko guaranteed uninterrupted power for the 2010 World Cup by renting the service, not the generators, then removing all equipment.
Read the caseAirbnb built a one-click bridge onto Craigslist's audience without permission
Airbnb, with no budget or API, built a one-click tool that cross-posted host listings to Craigslist, routing its traffic into Airbnb.
Read the caseAirbnb stopped showing either side's review until both had written theirs
Airbnb stopped showing either side's review until both had written theirs, so retaliation was impossible and honesty became rational.
Read the caseAjinomoto answered gyoza-stick claims by publishing 3,520 scanned pans
Ajinomoto, facing viral stick claims, asked customers to mail burnt pans, 3D-scanned 3,520, published them openly, then launched a less-sticky gyoza.
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