Contrary to the belief that late-night shopping is for small, impulsive buys, data reveals it's when consumers purchase big-ticket items like airfare and appliances. This "vampire shopping" trend suggests a period of focused, uninterrupted decision-making for busy consumers, creating a key sales window.

Starbucks' limited-edition items, like a "bearista" cup selling for $500 on eBay, create massive hype through engineered scarcity. This strategy shows that for certain brands, limited-run physical goods can be a more potent marketing tool than the core product itself, fostering a collector's frenzy and a lucrative secondary market.

Treat product data as a reflection of human behavior. At DoorDash, realizing the order status page had 3x more views than the homepage revealed intense user anxiety ("hanger"). This insight, derived from a data outlier, directly led to the creation of live order tracking.

High customer concentration risk is mitigated during hypergrowth phases. When customers are focused on speed and market capture, they prioritize effectiveness over efficiency. This provides a window for suppliers to extract high margins, as customers don't have the time or focus to optimize costs or build in-house alternatives.

The global expansion playbook is reversing. Chinese brands like Luckin Coffee, having perfected low-cost, tech-integrated models in a hyper-competitive home market, are now expanding into the West. They are attempting a "reverse Starbucks," bringing their operational efficiency and aggressive pricing to markets like New York.

Don't just ask customers about their business—independently verify it. When launching Uber Eats, the team couldn't get clear answers on restaurant economics. So they ordered food, weighed the ingredients, and built their own model, giving them the "ground truth" needed to confidently propose their pricing structure.

Facing hyper-competitive local rivals, Starbucks is selling a majority stake in its China business. This is not a retreat, but a strategic shift to a joint venture model. It's a playbook for Western brands to gain local agility, faster product rollouts, and deeper digital integration where Western brand dominance is fading.