Well, it all started with one tricky tweet from webhat :
Trust me, usually I am very quick in hitting “★” to favorite the tweet and then reply but this one shunned me as I was thinking that it is some kind of joke which completely bounced over me.
But, after few hours Macleod Sawyer replied to the tweet which then made me realize the fishy part and made me explore the “Underpants and Profit” story.
Breaking the Heist of “Underpants and Profit” Story
For those (like me) who haven’t watched the South Park might be clueless about it (by the way I was amazed that it is featured on Wikipedia too Wooooo…).
Well, the story is from South Park’s season 2, episode 17 where gnomes are “???” about Phase 2 of their business plan regarding “What they gonna do with those collected underpants to gain profit”.
So, what is Phase 2 as even the Forbes article rightly hints that Stealing Underpants isn’t enough :
So, what exactly is Phase 2 ???
- Is it about using those underpants by Gnomes? (Which I doubt though.)
- Or is it about selling them to People? (hmm… may be — but How?)
- Or is it about answering the above “How to sell?”
- Or is it about “setting the prices” for individual underpants?
- Or is it about all other “if-else” branches that leads to the profit?
I would say Phase 2 is about summing up all those points.
Yeah, all those points including the very first “The Odd One”:
Is it about using those underpants by Gnomes?
But why? Why the tiny Gnomes will ever have to wear those underpants of much bigger humans?
I would say ‘coz Gnomes must know beforehand the underpants they are planning to sell. To know whether they are even in a good shape to sell, to know whether they are even worth paying for etc.
Sounds Okay!!! Okay!!! Right? Now try the below substitution:
- Gnomes ↔ You (Your Business)
- Underpants ↔ Product
- People ↔ Consumers
Isn’t it interesting how they conveyed the most common issue of many businesses in rather such a funny toon show — Specifying how many businesses usually fumble with Phase-2 and then fail miserably.
Conclusion
Above business plan fits well in almost every business with Phase 2 playing a see-saw bridge between “You Starting the Business” and “You Gaining Profits”.
