We do not need to teach students to embrace the status quo.
Catering to the passionate is exactly what you should do.
The goal, then, isn't to draw some positioning charts and announce that you have differentiated your product. No, the opportunity is to actually create something that people choose to talk about, regardless of what the competition is doing.
Great marketers don't make stuff. They make meaning.
Fear for a linchpin is a clue that you're getting close to doing something important.
We long to connect, all of us. We long to be noticed, to be cared for, to matter. Generosity is the invisible salve on our wound of loneliness, one that benefits both sides, over and over again.