It is a well-known fact that I love the water.
My friends and family claim that I am a wasted companion on trips if anything resembling a pool (natural or otherwise) is found in the vicinity of where we go. They claim that if there ever was a hotel on water, it would be a permanent vacation for me, and you could not get me off that property for the rest of my life!
Though such a venture sounds unrealistic and insanely expensive to operate, I agree with my circle and secretly hoped that someone built a hotel on the water!
Therefore it was a pleasant surprise when I found a video that such a venture was undertaken in the late-1980s! The hotel looked majestic, and I thought it would have been on the “things to do before I die” list of many an adventure traveler.
However, things did not exactly pan out as the owners would have hoped, and the hotel has changed many hands (and locations) in its chequered 30-year history.
Here are 4 things that I took away from the video:
- There is a thin line between a 1st mover advantage & 1st mover curse
- The second mover usually has the most significant advantage!
- Monopolies exist in the short-term, and you can lose your market leadership if you do not continue to innovate and improve on your original idea
- You must get prepared to lose your moat almost overnight if it gets protected by government regulations, oversight, or tensions.
