I think this book is one of the best books in explaining how to assess the potential and situations of every business.

I was initially hesitant to read this due to the varying comments from the review but I was glad I was able to read the review of Perry Marshall.

The book discusses that there are only two ways to gain SIGNIFICANT competitive advantage in your industry - price simplification (at least 50% reduction in price of your product as compared to your industry's standard price) or proposition simplification (harder to describe, but the sample in the book is Apple's Ipod where it disrupted the entire music player industry with its huge technological/design advantage)

Some of the reviews are saying that the two are price and quality, which as stated above is not necessarily the case since quality is totally different from proposition. A music player made in japan is better in quality than a music player in china but this sample will fall under price simplification.

Other reviews say the similarity to Michael Porter's Generic Strategy Table which is somewhat true but the book goes on deeper as to how the strategies affect the industry as a whole (e.g. How Ford's price simplification INCREASED the value of the ENTIRE automotive industry.)

The book is a long read but it'll bring you a lot of ideas a you flip through each pages. I personally did.

I was initially very interested in reading this book in order to attempt to simplify my business practices, policies, and procedures. I appreciated learning the two types of simplification and reading examples about how these work. However, the book was actually quite complicated for something that is entitled "Simplify." While I consider myself business savvy, there were several times I had to reread information to try to understand what was written.

Valid and insightful concepts.
Simplify applies to identifying the next big thing and dominating the market share. The concepts has it's merit. The book also went on to cover some aspect where the theory does not apply.

Only 2 ways to simplify, through price or proposition but almost never both at the same time.