What drives customer behavior and customer choices? It’s the existential question for business; you’ve got to know the answer. But it’s a mystery, hard to unlock. The solution to this answer lies in what market researchers call insights, based on the Austrian deductive method that we summarized in episode #164 with Per Bylund (Mises.org/E4B_164).

All value is subjective. But often, when an exchange is to be made, a numerical value is required. It’s a special kind of economic calculation, what Bharat Kanodia terms “a subjective opinion based on objective facts”.
Bharat has built a career on valuations, from 2-founder garage start-ups to the Eiffel Tower. He shares his knowledge, experience, and insights with the Economics For Business podcast.

Entrepreneurship is a method, and it’s also a mindset. Fabrice Testa has written a book that brilliantly integrates the two: he calls the integration "Super Entrepreneurship," and his book title is therefore Super Entrepreneurship Decoded (Mises.org/E4B_139_Book).

With the development of the Austrian Business Paradigm and the Austrian Business Model, and tools such as the "Value Learning Process," businesses of all kinds can utilize the deep insights of Austrian economics to further enhance how they facilitate value for their customers.

“Small business” is just a government classification. Entrepreneurial businesses serving well-defined communities via creative specialization exhibit enormous economic productivity, energy and dynamism.
Such businesses can not be defined quantitatively as small, medium or large. They’re defined by their qualitative impact on their customers’ lives. 

Austrian economics sees an economy in motion, perpetually renewing itself. Economic agents (firms, customers, investors) constantly change their actions and strategies in response to outcome they mutually create. This further changes the outcome, which requires them to adjust afresh.

An understanding of the Austrian definition of capital is tremendously useful to all business owners and managers.

The entrepreneurial instinct can be sparked in K-12 and around the family dinner table. An entrepreneurial culture is highly beneficial to society at the global, national, and local levels. We should examine how well we nurture the entrepreneurial instinct in K-12 schooling and in the discussions we have with our kids at home.

Business strategy and business model design has traditionally been firm-centric. Entrepreneurs are called upon to establish firms, to make the firm the locus of value creation through value proposition design, assembly of resources, and production; and to ensure competitive advantage in comparison to rival firms pursuing the same customers.

Key Takeaways and Actionable Insights. Innovation is one of the keys to business success. The world is changing at such a pace, and your customers’ preferences are changing so fast, that your business has to change at the same speed, or even faster. How to keep up is a part of the entrepreneurial challenge.

Key Takeaways And Actionable Insights. In episode 60, we are joined by Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman of Ogilvy, one of the world’s largest advertising and marketing agencies, one with a long tradition of customer insights. His latest book is titled Alchemy, which explores how a deep understanding of subjective value can lead to outstandingly effective creative marketing.