When and why should one run a business in loss?

“Cost of doing business” explained the right way. Using a few examples.

The costs of doing business making your business sadder and sadder every day? Let’s change that. (image)

Quite a few of my Medium stories come up because of questions I am asked on Quora, or questions that I see popping up in my feed. This is one such story.

Earlier this week, I was asked this question:

This is a question that hits it a bit too close to the heart. I have never been a fan of ‘discounting for the sake of discounting’, or just because everyone else is doing it. So I answered the question. Unfortunately, I was answering it during my Uber ride, so I wasn’t able to get into a lot of details that I otherwise would have. So, here we are.

WHY DOES THIS QUESTION BECOME IMPORTANT?

Because everyone seems to be doing this, and a lot of SaaS tools for startups seem to be propagating this notion as well. Remember drip email marketing? You look at the popular tools in the space and they will tell you how you should propagate discounts in your emailers to your userbase to get them to convert more and more. As if discounting is the magic elixir that makes…