What Bottled Water Teaches Us About Value Creation

“Anyone who thinks that an industry or niche is saturated just needs to look at bottled water. This is something you can get for *free*, but there are thousands of brands out there with thousands more to be launched.” – Zuby (@ZubyMusic)

The words we use to describe what we’re offering matter. 

The words we tell ourselves about why we’re buying/using a product or service matters. 

Connecting the two – the story we tell others and the story they tell themselves – is where value creation happens. 

Whatever we’re working on, whatever we want others to value, we have to think through both steps. 

1. What are we saying?

2. What are they saying to themselves after we tell them? 

Because water is either in the tap or the bottle of the beholder. One is “free,” the other is “paid.” The different is all story. 

h/t Ed Latimore for the quote. 

Ps. check out my further riff on it here too: