Seth Godin, a guru on permission marketing in his post But Your Not Saying Anything, points out that something in your business must tell a story, whether it is pricing or distribution or a vision for a service. Without difference from the competitors, nothing about the business will catch the eye. You’ll just be generic.

What he doesn’t point out, though, is that you can really only change one big thing. If you change more than one, it becomes very hard to sell.

Every once in a while I read an amazingly good business book and want to share it. I can highly recommend The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steven Gary Blank. (Amazon link. I make no money from this promotion.)

Four Steps deals with an issue that has run through my head for years: why do start-ups fail? Mr. Blank believes that start-ups fail because of two reasons: 1) they don’t focus early and often enough on understanding the customers and 2) these companies don’t realize that the way to enter the market depends on what market type the company is going after (new market, existing market or resegmented one).

It’s not that he just describes the problem, though. He actually outlines an exact methodology for tackling this problem, literally step by step.

A little background: I love history and believe very strongly that those who don’t learn it are doomed to repeat it. After reading this book I was able to see where a number of companies I have observed over the years, including my own Infinity Softworks, have gone off course.

I have already started implementing his ideas for the next generation of Infinity Softworks. I’m certain it will pay off.

Chris Anderson, a writer for Wired Magazine, wrote a stunning treatise a few years ago called The Long Tail (Powells or Amazon). If you are unfamiliar, it highlights that more money can be made by selling less of more. Think iTunes, which has made a killing carrying millions of albums and selling a few of each as opposed to Walmart who carries a few thousand albums and sell lots of those. The long tail refers to the sales curve, where hits are few but sell tons (the head) and then tails off where individual units sell fewer and fewer.

As for examples, I could go on all day. Amazon sells tons of stuff you can’t find anywhere else. Start-up Etsy is trying to do this for crafts. eBay for all of us who want to sell our junk.

The problem is that there is tons of money for the aggregator but not that much for the suppliers. I have seen this first-hand for years. It was never the developers that made tons of money. Most of us scrambled to make a few hundred thousand dollars a year, and that was by putting tons of effort and energy into it. We were all suppliers to the long tail.

Apple, with the AppStore, is trying to recreate the magic of iTunes for mobile software. They may very well succeed and make tons of money from it, but I can guarantee the very dynamics of the market will mean very few of the software developers make it big.

If we want to build big companies, I argue that we as software developers need to think beyond the mobile device. What does it mean to be web connected? What does it mean to work everywhere? And what’s the bigger story that includes mobile but is not only mobile?

Meditation Master Achaan Chaa was visited by one of his students who wanted to know how he could be happy in a world with so many problems. Master Chaa held up a water glass and said, “For me, this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. But when I put this glass on a shelf and my elbow brushes it and it falls to the ground and it shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ When I understand that this glass is broken, every moment is precious.”

Here’s to assuming every day is broken before it begins.