Imagine the misery people went through for centuries prior to the discovery of pain killers. If you’ve ever had a tooth ache, I’m sure you can attest to the eff

Imagine the misery people went through for centuries prior to the discovery of pain killers. If you’ve ever had a tooth ache, I’m sure you can attest to the efficacy of pain killers as a medical invention. They are an enormously important piece in the quality of life that most of us enjoy today. The vitamin vs pain killer metaphor is about building a company with a defensible business model. So, the metaphor is about arriving at an honest answer to this question: would the “quality of life” of your first customer improve significantly if they switched to your product? If you answer is no, you have two options: 1. either make changes to your product to make it more attractive to your target customers or; 2. keep the product as-is but change your positioning so that the product can be marketed to a different set of target customers to which the answer to the question is yes.