# Complements ## The Idea in Brief When the price of a complement falls, willingness-to-pay for your product rises. This is one of the most powerful and overlooked strategic levers. Most strategists obsess over their own product whilst value pools shift around them. The companies that win understand they're not just competing — they're orchestrating a system. --- ## Key Concepts **Complements raise WTP.** Cheap petrol makes cars more valuable. Great apps make phones more valuable. Fast broadband makes streaming services more valuable. The quality of complements directly affects what customers will pay for your product. **Value pools shift.** When prices fall somewhere in a system, value doesn't disappear — it moves. It flows from the less-expensive product to its complements. Understanding this changes which investments make sense. **Complements hide in customer journeys.** They're often things that seem unrelated to your core business. What do customers use before, during, or after using your product? What else do they buy in the same decision? What infrastructure do they need to get value from what you sell? --- ## Strategic Options **Give it away.** Make the complement free to drive demand for your main product. Razors and blades. Gaming consoles and games. **Own it.** If the complement is valuable enough, acquire or build it. Control the whole system. **Commoditise it.** Make the complement available from multiple sources so no single supplier has leverage. Open standards serve this purpose. **Bundle it.** Package complement and product together so customers can't separate them. Shift competition to the bundle level. --- ## Implications **In product strategy:** Before optimising your own product, ask what complements are getting better or cheaper — and who's capturing the value that creates. **In competitive analysis:** Suppliers of complements often become competitors. The company that makes your product more valuable today may extract that value tomorrow. **In investment decisions:** Investing in complements you don't own can be strategic if it raises demand for products you do own. --- ## Sources - [[Better, Simpler Strategy]] — The core framework for understanding how complements shift profit pools - [[7 Powers]] — Network Economies and Process Power often operate through complement dynamics --- ## See in Notes - [Complements](https://www.anishpatel.co/complements/) — The four strategic options for managing complements - [The Value Stick](https://www.anishpatel.co/the-value-stick/) — How complements raise WTP