Business Competency & the Pathway to Market Leadership

7 min readOct 12, 2025

Over the years, I have grown obsessed with the subject of entrepreneurship. The founding of ventures, projects, and innovative offerings for the marketplace that did not exist — or that improved something already present. I have engaged in many undertakings that have failed or simply did not reach the desired goals, some of which were flawed in their structure, and others in their service, which, without demand, nobody wanted. Yet those trials and errors gave me significant experimental capital I would not have gained otherwise.

One of those attempts that did not work out took place in 2017, in Lawrence, MA, a project I named The Agora’s Laurel Bilingual Book Club. With this initiative, I sought to have a monthly discussion around a book by a Nobel Prize laureate in literature from Latin America, choosing books with translations in English. The mission was to bring together, in a meeting of the minds, participants who were native speakers from two different languages and existed in two different cultures within the same city. I had a vision of implicitly attempting to promote literacy and community over the exact same story.

Although I had a lot of support with this project, such as access to the real estate, where I was able to use the Lawrence Public Library and its spaces to host the meetings for free. The goodwill of the library director at the time, Mrs. Jessica Vilas Novas, currently serving on the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, who would actively act as a mentor and advise me on better practices (as she had led similar projects which had been a success). Assisting me with the promotion of the event through the library’s channels of distribution, and coordinating with the staff to have the books ready for the patrons in circulation, so they could take them home with convenience. The staff would give me the word on how many books were being taken out, and the engagement with the project on a regular basis, which I would use as data to implement; something I will be forever grateful. Lastly, a somewhat decent brand identity with a memorable logo, beautifully designed by an architect, that helped it have a unique face. The project lasted several months, and then it ceased.

There were missing pieces to the whole. Looking back, I, as a leader, failed to effectively communicate its value and why it mattered to the public. I learned the hard way that an enterprise is like a system that requires many parts working together to function. More importantly, these entities do not operate in a vacuum. Their context has a direct effect on their outcomes and outputs, such as their target market — a significant factor. I also did not understand my constituents and their needs, and how their lives schedules worked around the meeting times. I should have had good snacks ready to deploy into the munchies while discussing The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa. But we live and we learn.

A market can be compared to a pie in the same way: a business’s market share is a slice of that pie. A market’s total sales can therefore be divided and evaluated by the percentage each business is able to take, with the one firm capturing the most sales considered the leader of its industry.

However, no one wants the smallest slice (at least I don’t — I want the whole cake), and to obtain the largest, one’s enterprise must have superior business practices compared to other industry participants. But what does that mean, pragmatically speaking?

I have come to understand that for a business to reach the summit, there is not a single trait or avenue; rather, there are many paths to market dominance.

Let’s consider PepsiCo, Inc., a publicly traded company — owned by shareholders — listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange. At the time of writing this article, its unit stock price is $150.08 USD, documenting a $22.73 billion profit for the second quarter of 2025, ending in June, as reported in their FORM 10-Q to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. This business has a market valuation of approximately $180 billion to $195 billion, depending on the source.

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PepsiCo is also the number-one titan in the U.S. snack food production market, an arena that consumes potato and corn chips. It contains a total of $49.8 billion in revenue and 3,954 business participants, according to an industry report from IBISWorld for this year. Pepsi, through products such as Lay’s potato chips, captures the largest share of the pie — 39.7% of the total, which equates to $19.8 billion. PepsiCo, which is also the parent company of Gatorade and other brands, and has had a high focus on storytelling and evoking feelings and emotions that captivate its audience. Using visually appealing branding for its different daughter companies to distinguish them from other options in the minds of their customers, which gives a sense of belonging to a tribe.

When asked about the one trait that businesses with market leadership must have, Mr. Christopher Sicuranza, who has worked as a municipal government executive in Gloucester, MA, says: “Listening. Whether that means listening to the market and the changing trends; listening to customers or clients and what they are experiencing; listening to your employees and how to improve culture; listening to competitors and how they are evolving — you have to be able to listen and learn so as to lead. If not, you won’t evolve and grow.” This statement can be applied to creating intel-gathering systems and implementing market research, such as listening sessions for constituent markets to optimize decision-making.

Yet reaching the number-one spot can also have negative implications — for the consumer. An investigation performed on competition in digital markets by the U.S. Congressional Judiciary Committee, led by Congressman Jerry Nadler and published in 2022, examined the dominance of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, and their business practices to determine how their power affects the nation’s economy and democracy. It was found that these firms may have undue control over both.

It was observed that Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google have not only wielded but also abused their power by charging exorbitant fees, imposing oppressive contract terms, and extracting valuable data from the people and businesses that rely on them. Moreover, these firms have eroded entrepreneurship, degraded Americans’ privacy online, and undermined the vibrancy of a free and diverse press. After investigating several markets, such as social networking, general online search, and online advertising, it was found that these are dominated by just one or two firms. Opening a conversation on a new type of monopoly and whether the country’s antitrust recourse is up to date to promote fair competition in the marketplace and safeguard the consumer today.

Considering most businesses are statistically proven not to make it past five years, most forecasts are already against new enterprises. How does a venture reach sustainability and, better yet, become the leader of its target market?

Well, sometimes it can be a trade secret that cannot be disclosed without materially affecting the company, such as the Coca-Cola formula. Yet businesses must strive to achieve higher sales and decode enigmas to meet the visions of their organizations. Because people go into business to make a profit, not to run a charity. But what is the sauce of leadership in a market?

Mr. David M. Brown, JD, MMSc, Venture Capitalist and Serial Entrepreneur from Texas, whom I have the pleasure to call a friend, comments: “The most important trait of a successful company is to maintain complete and TOTAL DEDICATION TO REALITY; i.e., companies must always look at the hard numbers, market trends, and reevaluate their relevancy on a regular basis in the market space where they operate. I would say the second most important thing is to reevaluate the company’s relevancy on a regular basis in the market space where they operate.”

In the past, I would have said a cohesive visual brand identity, but I have come to realize that in this day and age, a branding guidelines document is standard practice for businesses. The logo, color palette, typography, iconography, and photography conversation is an entry-level conversation and not a leadership conversation. If a business leadership team cannot grasp the branding–increased sales correlation by 2025, it needs to be buried in oblivion. Now, I believe indeed that culture is the trait to reach market leadership. A positive culture in an organization is able to uphold the integrity of its components, especially its human resources. When the team members of an enterprise feel wholeness by working for a company that provides fair pay, dignity, opportunities, and consideration, they will give their best to maintain the platform that gives them such value, advancing their objectives. When they are made to feel they matter, they will excel at doing things that matter. As the marketing philosopher Seth Godin writes in his book The Song of Significance, “Significance is where high trust meets high stakes. Significant work leads to impact and change.” I wonder what PepsiCo’s culture is like.