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A few blocks from my home sits a small Japanese grocery store that has been in the neighborhood for years. Its the kind of place that once felt irreplaceablecarefully sourced ingredients, shelves stocked with items I couldnt find in mainstream supermarkets, and an owner who knows her regulars. But much as I love this store, it has been in steady decline for a few years now. Whole Foods opened up nearby and it now stocks all the basicsmiso paste, kombu, dashi packets, norithat I, or anyone else, could want for weeknight Japanese cooking. Suddenly, the extra trip to the specialty shop felt unnecessary most of the time. The big chain became good enough, and in a world where convenience dictates behavior, good enough tends to win. What happened to that shop isnt really about Japanese groceries. The same story is playing out across sectors as the mass market parts of many businesses are being swallowed up by bigger players. If a small business competes on anything that a large company can copy and make money from, you can bet your bottom dollar that a large company will eventually start providing those goods or services. And thanks to globalized supply, online storefronts, and the ever-increasing speed of information flows about trends and consumer needs, that copying can happen almost instantly. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/creator-faisalhoque.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/faisal-hoque.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"Ready to thrive at the intersection of business, technology, and humanity? ","dek":"Faisal Hoques books, podcast, and his companies give leaders the frameworks and platforms to align purpose, people, process, and techturning disruption into meaningful, lasting progress.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/faisalhoque.com","theme":{"bg":"#02263c","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#ffffff","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#000000"},"imageDesktopId":91420512,"imageMobileId":91420514,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} Thats why many small businesses need to rethink their business models. Market segments that once seemed niche are quickly becoming part of the mass market. And small businesses have never been able to compete in broad market sectors on the provision of products or services alone. In todays environment, the only defensible strategy is to go narrowmuch narrower than often feels comfortable. Taking this path can be particularly difficult because when times are tough. The instinct of a small business owner is normally to try harder at everything: better service, longer hours, more products, lower prices. But thats a trap. When you compete broadly against players with structural advantages, youre fighting a war of attrition you cannot win. So, instead of trying to beat big companies at their game, SMEs should play a different game altogether, a game they have advantages that the big beasts cant replicate. The three shifts that define survival Small businesses that want to thrive in the future need to make three fundamental shifts in how they operate. 1. From Generalist to Specialist: The Power of Expertise When business gets tough, owners often broaden the offeringthey add more products and try to serve more customer types to become all things to all people. This is understandable but counterproductive. Instead, the path to survival runs through radical specialization: owning a territory so narrow and deep that competition becomes nearly irrelevant. The point is that while generalist businesses compete with everyone, specialists compete with almost no one. An accounting firm serving all small businesses faces constant price pressures from the commoditization of services in their sector. The same firm focusing exclusively on assisting craft breweries as they navigate excise tax regulations, inter-state distribution challenges, equipment depreciation schedules, and seasonal cash flow patterns can add value in ways that a large firm selling generalized services never could. They are not competing on price anymorethey are competing on irreplaceable expertise.This matters now more than ever because AI and automation are rapidly commoditizing general knowledge. ChatGPT can generate useful general marketing advice. But it cannot replicate 15 years of navigating the specific regulatory environment of biotech fundraising or identifying which Japanese suppliers source sustainably today. Only the deepest moats can be defended when breadth can be automated. 2. From Customers to Community: Building Tribal Loyalty In an age in which more and more interactions are becoming digital and transactional, the hunger for genuine connection intensifies. People will pay premiums and make extra trips for businesses that make them feel they belong to somethingbusiness that dont just sell products but that create communities. Radical specialization creates the conditions for community, because the people who walk through the door arent just customers anymore. They are people who share something in common: a deep focus on and interest in a specific activity, product, or type of knowledge. This is the foundation on which small businesses can build their tribes. For example, instead of simply selling products, the Japanese grocery store in my neighborhood could cultivate a community of serious home cooks who care about authentic Japanese cuisine. It could organize monthly sake tastings, knife skills workshops, cooking demonstrationsanything that helps create a community of people who come to the store because its their store, a place where people like them hang out and shop. In this way, the business becomes not just a vendor but the center of a shared identity. 3. From Corporate Speak to Real Humanity: The Power of Authenticity Small businesses often try to sound like big companies. The irony is that this erases the one advantage small businesses will always have over their larger competitorsthe ability to be distinctively, recognizably human. Big companies have no choice but to be bland, because when a business serves millions of customers with diverse values and preferences, it cannot afford to be polarizing. Every piece of marketing content, branding, and presentation is smoothed into a form that is maximally inoffensive, and which almost inevitably tends to fade into forgettable corporate messaging. But small businesses that specialize do not face this constraint. They can afford to have opinions, quirks, and personality. And in a world where AI can generate perfectly polished content and every brand sounds the same, being recognizably yourself becomes a competitive advantage that cannot be replicated. This isnt just about being quirky for its own sake. An authentic voice does three thins that corporate polish cannot. First, it makes expertise tangiblestrong opinions come from deep knowledge, and customers can sense the difference between an earned perspective and generic advice. Second, it attracts the right people while repelling everyone else, which is exactly what a specialized business needs. Third, it creates connection before transaction. When someone has been following the grocery store owners social media posts for months, seeing her passion for real ingredients and deep knowledge of the products she sells, the first visit feels less like shopping and more like finally meeting someone they already know. Three things to do right now Here are three concrete steps you can take immediately as a small business owner to help your business survive into 2026 and beyond. 1. Map your territory Pick your top 10 customers and write down what they have in common. What do they care about that others dont? What expertise do they value that general competitors cant provide? This exercise reveals where the business already has traction with a specific groupthe foundation for radical specialization. Most small businesses discover theyre already serving a niche without realizing it. The work is recognizing it and leaning into it fully rather than hedging with broader offerings. 2. Choose one thing to stop doing Radical specialization requires subtraction. This week, identify one product line, service offering, or customer segment that pulls the business away from its core expertise. Then stop serving it. This can feel terrifying. The instinct is to worry about lost revenue. But the store that stops trying to compete as a general grocer and embraces a new identity as a specialty shop for serious home cooks isnt limiting itselfits claiming territory it can actually defend. 3. Show up as a human being Pick one platformInstagram, LinkedIn, a blog, whatever feels naturaland commit to posting three times this week as an actual person with actual opinions. The goal isnt to go viral or be provocative for its own sake. It is to demonstrate that there is a real human with real expertise and real opinions behind the businesssomeone worth paying attention to and someone eventually worth paying to do business with. This may feel uncomfortable at first. That discomfort is a good sign. If it feels too polished and safe, its not quite working yet. The path forward That Japanese grocery store near my house is still therefor now. But if it wants to survive in the long term, it will need to make choices that feel counterintuitive: going narrower instead of broader, becoming smaller instead of bigger. In a world in which large companies are serving broader and broader markets, small businesses need to lean into becoming specialists. This gives them not just something feasible to defend but the tools they will need to fight for their territory. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/creator-faisalhoque.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/faisal-hoque.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"Ready to thrive at the intersection of business, technology, and humanity? ","dek":"Faisal Hoques books, podcast, and his companies give leaders the frameworks and platforms to align purpose, people, process, and techturning disruption into meaningful, lasting progress.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/faisalhoque.com","theme":{"bg":"#02263c","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#ffffff","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#000000"},"imageDesktopId":91420512,"imageMobileId":91420514,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
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A shooting last weekend at a children’s birthday party in California that left four dead was the 17th mass killing this year the lowest number recorded since 2006, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.Experts warn that the drop doesn’t necessarily mean safer days are here to stay and that it could simply represent a return to average levels.“Sir Isaac Newton never studied crime, but he says ‘What goes up must come down,'” said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University. The current drop in numbers is more likely what statisticians call a “regression to the mean,” he said, representing a return to more average crime levels after an unusual spike in mass killings in 2018 and 2019.“Will 2026 see a decline?” Fox said. “I wouldn’t bet on it. What goes down must also go back up.”The mass killings defined as incidents in which four or more people are killed in a 24-hour period, not including the killer are tracked in the database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. Fox, who manages the database, says mass killings were down about 24% this year compared to 2024, which was also about a 20% drop compared to 2023.Mass killings are rare, and that means the numbers are volatile, said James Densley, a professor of at Metropolitan State University in Minnesota.“Because there’s only a few dozen mass killings in a year, a small change could look like a wave or a collapse,” when really it’s just a return to more typical levels, Densley said. “2025 looks really good in historical context, but we can’t pretend like that means the problem is gone for good.” Decline in rates of homicide and violent crime might be a factor But there are some things that might be contributing to the drop, Densley said, including an overall decline in homicide and violent crime rates, which peaked during the COVID-19 pandemic. Improvements in the immediate response to mass shootings and other mass casualty incidents could also be playing a part, he said.“We had the horrible Annunciation School shooting here in Minnesota back in August, and that case wouldn’t even fit the mass killing definition because there were only two people killed but over 20 injured,” Densley said. “But I happen to know from the response on the ground here, that the reason only two people were killed is because of the bleeding control and trauma response by the first responders. And it happened on the doorsteps of some of the best children’s hospitals in the country.”Crime is complex, and academics are not great at assessing the reasons behind crime rate changes, said Eric Madfis, a professor of criminal justice at University of Washington-Tacoma.“It’s multicausal. It’s never going to be just one thing. People are still debating why homicide rates went down in the 1990s,” Madfis said. “It is true that gun violence and gun violence deaths are down, but we still have exceedingly high rates and numbers of mass shootings compared to anywhere else in the world.”More states are dedicating funding to school threat assessments, with 22 states mandating the practice in recent years, Madfis said, and that could be preventing some school shootings, though it wouldn’t have an impact on mass killings elsewhere. None of the mass killings recorded in the database so far in 2025 took place in schools, and only one mass killing at a school was recorded in 2024. Most of those who die in mass killings are shot About 82% of this year’s mass killings involved a firearm. Since 2006, 3,234 people have died in mass killings and 81% of them were shooting victims.Christopher Carita, a former detective with the Fort Lauderdale Police Department and a senior training specialist with gun safety organization 97Percent, said the Safer Communities Act passed in 2022 included millions of dollars of funding for gun violence protection programs. Some states used the money to create social supports for people at risk of committing violence, and others used it for things like law enforcement and threat assessment programs. That flexibility has been key to reducing gun violence rates, he said.“It’s always been framed as either a ‘gun problem’ or a ‘people problem’ and that’s been very contentious,” Carita said. “I feel like for the first time, we’re looking at gun violence as a ‘both, and’ problem nationally.”Focusing on extreme events like mass killings runs the risk of “missing the forest for the trees,” said Emma Fridel, an assistant professor of criminology at Florida State University. “If you look at the deaths from firearms, both in homicides and suicides, the numbers are staggering. We lose the same number of people every year to gun violence as the number of casualties we experienced in the Korean War. The number one cause of death for children is guns.“Mass killings should be viewed as one part of the issue, rather than the outcome of interest,” she said. Rebecca Boone, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
The Prada Group closed the purchase of Milan fashion rival Versace in a $1.375 billion cash deal that puts the fashion house known for its sexy silhouettes under the same roof as Prada’s “ugly chic” aesthetic and Miu Miu’s youth-driven appeal.The highly anticipated deal is expected to relaunch Versace’s fortunes, after middling post-pandemic performance as part of the U.S. luxury group Capri Holdings.Prada said in a one-line statement that the acquisition had been completed after receiving all regulatory clearances. Capri Holdings, which owns Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo, said the money would be used to pay down debt.Donatella Versace welcomed the deal in an Instagram post, which also marked the birthday of the brand’s late founder, her brother, Gianni Versace.“Today is your day and the day Versace joins the Prada family. I am thinking of the smile you would have had on your face,” she wrote in a post that also featured a 1996 photo of Gianni Versace with Miuccia Prada. Versace’s future Prada heir Lorenzo Bertelli is set to steer Versace’s next phase as executive chairman, in addition to his roles as group marketing director and sustainability chief.The son of co-creative director Miuccia Prada and longtime Prada Group chairman Patrizio Bertelli has said he doesn’t expect to make any swift executive changes at Versace, although he also noted that the company, which is among the top 10 most recognized brands in the world, has long been underperforming in the market.Prada has underlined that the 47-year-old Versace brand offered “significant untapped growth potential.”The appeal of the deal is that it combines “the minimalist Prada (with) a maximalist Versace,” said Luca Solca, an analyst at Bernstein Group consulting firm, meaning that the brands don’t compete for the same customers.Versace is “long past its heyday,” Solca said. “The challenge and the opportunity is to make it relevant again. . . . They are going to have to invent something which is going to make the brand attractive, desirable, and interesting again.”Versace already has begun a creative relaunch under a new designer, Dario Vitale, who previewed his first collection during Milan Fashion Week in September. He was previously head of design at Miu Miu, but his move to Versace was unrelated to the Prada deal, executives have said.The runway show received mixed reviews, but the collection itselfa colorful, revealing riff on the 1980sgot good feedback from buyers. “I think that this seems to be a promising first step,” Solca said. Breaking from the past Capri Holdings paid $2 billion for Versace in 2018, but had been struggling to position the brands’ bold profile in the recent era of “quiet luxury.”Capri Holdings chairman John D. Idol said in a statement that “Prada is the ideal partner to guide this celebrated luxury house into its next era of growth.”Versace represented 20% of Capri Holdings’ 2024 revenue of 5.2 billion euros.Prada said when the deal was announced in April that Versace would represent 13% of the Prada Group’s pro forma revenues, with Miu Miu coming in at 22% and Prada at 64%. The Prada Group, which also includes Church’s footwear, reported a 17% boost in revenues to 5.4 billion euros ($6.3 billion) last year. Prada’s in-house manufacturing The Prada Group has already begun preparations to incorporate crosstown rival Versace into its Italian manufacturing system, a point of pride for the group.“Making a bag for one brand or another, the know-how is the same,” Bertelli told reporters last week at the group’s Scandicci leather goods factory, which already makes bags for the Prada and Miu Miu brands and will soon add Versace.Artisans stitched handles onto leather bags, and cut leather with laser machines inside the leather goods factory, where trainees were learning the trade as part of Prada’s 25-year-old academy. It has trained some 570 new artisans in an in-house training program in the Tuscany, Marche, Veneto and Umbria regions of Italy.Last year, Prada hired 70% of the 120 artisans who trained in the academy. The number of trainees rose by 28% to 152 this year.The Prada Group has invested 60 million euros ($69.6 million) in its supply chain this year, including a new leather goods factory near Siena, a new knitwear factory near Perugia, as well as increasing production at its Church’s footwear factory in Britain and expanding another Tuscan factory. That’s on top of 200 million euros ($232 million) in investments from 2019 to 2024. Colleen Barry, Associated Press
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