23/04/2026
📢Series: Icon 16 of a series of 18.
Here is a strategic paradox that most companies never grasp:
Sometimes the path to market dominance is not building the best product yourself. It is giving everyone else the tools to build theirs.
In 2004, three developers - Joachim Ante, David Helgason, and Nicholas Francis - founded Unity Technologies in Copenhagen. The gaming industry at the time was dominated by expensive, complex development tools that only large studios could afford. Making a professional-quality game required massive teams and budgets.
Unity changed the equation completely.
They built a game engine that was powerful enough for professionals yet accessible enough for independent developers and small teams. Their pricing model - free for small studios, affordable for larger ones - shattered the barrier between having a great game idea and actually building it.
The strategy was never to make the best game. It was to become the platform that others used to make their best games.
Today, Unity powers more than half of the world's mobile games. But the engine has expanded far beyond gaming into architecture, automotive design, film production, and healthcare simulation. They became infrastructure for an entire creative economy.
🎯The strategic lesson: EMPOWERMENT.
The most powerful strategic position is not always the one at the top of the value chain. Sometimes it is at the foundation - enabling an entire ecosystem to thrive and making yourself indispensable in the process.
At MakeMyStrategy™, we share this philosophy. Our goal is not to do the strategy for you - it is to give you the tools and the framework to do it brilliantly yourself.
Who could you empower to grow your market?