Inefficiencies are what make you special

The prime example of inefficiencies helping business is elBulli? <i>Really?</i><p>Somehow I doubt that all, or even most, of elBulli's inefficiencies are helping it "succeed" - according to Wikipedia, it has operated at a loss for the last decade. The only reason it stays afloat is that Ferran Adrià leverages his status in the culinary world to bring in income from other sources. The restaurant is not a business, by any stretch of the imagination; it's a playground, maintained only as a labor of love, managed more for the pleasure of the owner than to make money. It's easy to create something fantastic if you don't have to think about costs or profit...<p>If you're one of the most highly respected Xs in the world, and can make a good living writing books and giving lectures, sure, go ahead, follow suit, create a fantasy world for yourself that you can finance based on your fame, and run it without fussing yourself over any difficult tradeoffs. Who knows, it might even help your real business by giving you more credentials in the industry, so it could be a net win.<p>That doesn't make it a business model for everyone else, though.<p>If you <i>can't</i> leverage your fame into a substantial paycheck, please don't try to emulate "businesses" that survive only based on cash infusions from the owners..

that's a pretty narrow definition of inefficient. i would say efficient practices are the ones that add the most value, but i suppose that wouldn't make as interesting a title for an article..

And efficiencies are what make you big and profitable. El Bulli may be the #1 restaurant in the world, but it runs in the red every year. In contrast, the predictable, efficient, and unquirky McDonalds does $4bn in the black every year.

Or more accurately, the minimum requirement isn't always best for business. You could say that cheap packaging and presentation is an inefficient use of a marketing opportunity.