A curious mind does not say to consumers "What do you want?" A curious mind understands context, understands behavior, understands spending and spending patterns - the accumulation of a day's purchases, or spending over a week or a year. A curious mind asks the questions that open up the consumer to talk about her latent dissatisfactions, hopes, wishes, and dreams.

Woo your biggest fans. This rule says concentrate your efforts at understanding on the 2 percent of consumers that personally drive 20 percent of sales and invite their friends and colleagues to enjoy you.

I admire many entrepreneurs. They bring energy, excitement, youthful enthusiasm. What they lack in process, they make up for in gumption.

Don't ask your customers what they want. This rule is based on the view that they probably don't know. You have to fully understand them, the context for their needs and their major dissatisfactions.

Failure to make the tough but necessary choices means slow painful death.

All companies have many opportunities. Strategy is about allocation of resources and priorities.

A curious mind armed with skill, experience, knowledge, and patterns can give birth to big brand revolution.