Blog: Pete Loshin

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Hypo-Allergenic Cats, Adding Value, and Proprietary Technology

One hypo-allergenic kitten: US$3,950

Processing and delivery (by private jet): US$995

Premium Placement fee (to reduce waiting time from two years or more to a few months): US$1,950

A business model that guarantees total monopoly over product distribution: Priceless.

When you're allergic to cats, the fact that there are tens of millions of the creatures available more or less for free doesn't help much. But for less than $5,000 ($7,000 if you can't wait two or more years), you can have an adorable kitten that won't make your nose run or your eyes water.

That's part of the reason Allerca Inc. has developed and is now marketing hypo-allergenic cats.

Allerca originally had intended to genetically engineer a better kitten, but found it easier to use more traditional breeding techniques to adapt existing breeds that already tend to produce less of the substances that cause allergies.

What does this have to do with software? It's the business model: Allerca is the only source (for now) of this kind of cat, so if you want one you've got to buy it from them.

So what prevents customers or competitors from buying a breeding pair, and cutting Allerca out of the loop? Copy protection that really works: mandatory neutering.

Here is a case where the copy protection removes a product feature, the ability to self-replicate, that most users usually don't use--and adds a unique and very desirable feature that customers can't get anywhere else.

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