Midnight Oil Writing

OK, this past weekend I geeked out a bit on the Deadliest Catch Marathon in advance of this week’s debut of season 7.

During the “Deadliest Catch: Best of Season 6,” Captain Sig Hansen ended up “fishing with friends.”  And that presented a challenge to his end goal:  filling his tank with crab.

Avid fans of Deadliest Catch may know the details, but for those who don’t, here’s a quick overview.  Depending on the time of year and species of crab they are hunting, there are approximately 80 boats in the Bering Sea crab fleet.  The captains of those boats can choose where to fish; they do so based on current surveys from Alaska’s department of Fish & Game, previous experience and intuition.

It’s not easy to suss out where the crab is.

From the show it appears that Captain Sig likes to fish alone.  It makes sense: when you are the only boat fishing a particular spot, all the crab there are yours to catch.  When you’re fishing with friends, there are more boats and more pots going after the same amount of crab.

In this case, it meant fewer crabs in Sig’s pots.  Fewer crabs per pot equals more pots, more time and more effort to fill the tank, get to port and cash-in on the catch.

What does this mean for business strategy?  I think the Groupons of the world – all the daily deal startups and new entrants – have positioned themselves to be fishing with friends.  Sure, Groupon’s valuation is soaring.  They made, own and dominate that market.  Yet it seems every week we hear of new companies racing to be “the next Groupon.” The New York Times wrote an article on the “fleet of start-ups” chasing this market.

I think these Groupon clones should take a lesson from Captain Sig: it’s better to fish alone than to fish with friends.

– Kelley
@kelleylynnk