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The Founder's Notes

The Strat · Episode 21 · The Rise Of

25 June 2026 · 12 min

JBL

Build the speakers the cinemas and studios use, then sell that credibility to everyone else at a lower price.

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From the show notes

The rise of JBL

Published as

21- The Rise of JBL

§01 — What to listen for

James B. Lansing built loudspeakers for the film industry in the 1930s and 1940s, and the company that carries his initials spent decades as the professional's choice before it was ever a consumer brand. Listen for the sequence — the studio, the stadium, the car — and for how each professional market made the next consumer product easier to sell.

Today JBL is the volume brand inside Harman, which Samsung bought in 2017, and it sells more Bluetooth speakers than anyone. The strategy is distribution breadth built on borrowed authority. The Bose episode that follows is the counter-argument: one company chose to be everywhere and one chose to be expensive.

The episode tells the story. The written case does what twelve minutes cannot: the business model, the moat, the statements, the valuation, and a verdict. Read the JBL teardown.

§02 — The strategy, named

The mechanisms this episode demonstrates, in the same vocabulary the case library uses. Where a pattern has been written up, the claim is here; otherwise the tag is still in the queue.

§03 — Go deeper

21Audio

JBL

Contested moat · Watch it

Verdict

Watch it

If JBL's flagship consumer line's average selling price declines for two consecutive years while unit volume grows, the price ladder is collapsing downward and breadth has become dilution — at that point the brand is being harvested rather than built, and this becomes a Pass. Equally, if Samsung breaks out Lifestyle Audio and shows JBL growing revenue with expanding margin against Anker and Sony, breadth is proven durable and the case gets stronger, not weaker.

§04 — More from The Rise Of

How twenty-four of the world's most valuable brands were actually built.

  1. 01NikeOwn the design and the demand, rent the factory, and sell what the shoe says about the person wearing it.6 min
  2. 02AmazonLose money on purpose for a decade, and build the infrastructure everyone else will have to rent.8 min
  3. 03AppleControl the hardware, the software and the store, and make leaving cost more than staying.13 min
  4. 04LululemonCharge double for a pair of leggings, and recruit the yoga instructor to explain why.10 min
  5. 05StarbucksSell the place, not the coffee, and charge a rent premium on every cup.12 min
  6. 06SephoraTake the makeup out from behind the counter, let the customer touch everything, and become the shelf every brand needs.11 min
  7. 07LongchampMake one folding nylon bag the entire company, and keep the family in charge of it.7 min
  8. 08McDonald'sSell hamburgers to the public, and sell real estate to the franchisees.11 min
  9. 09IKEAMake the customer do the assembly, the transport and the carrying, and give them the saving as the price.8 min
  10. 10ChanelStay private, never discount, and let the founder's myth do a century of work.10 min
  11. 11DiorLaunch a house with a textile magnate's money, change the shape of women's clothes in one show, and license the name to the world.10 min
  12. 12GoogleGive away the best product on the internet, and charge whoever wants to stand next to the answer.13 min
  13. 13GucciNearly destroy the brand through family and licensing, then rebuild it around one designer at a time.9 min
  14. 14PradaMake luxury out of nylon, keep the company in the family, and treat the intellect as the brand.13 min
  15. 15Miu MiuLaunch a second house with the founder's nickname, aim it younger, and let it outgrow the first.8 min
  16. 16Tiffany & Co.Own a colour, put it on a box, and make the box worth more than most of what goes inside it.11 min
  17. 17HermèsLet the artisans set the pace, and turn a production constraint into the most valuable waiting list in retail.10 min
  18. 18GlossierBuild the audience before the product, and sell them what they told you they wanted.14 min
  19. 19NARSLet a makeup artist with a camera be the brand, and price the point of view.9 min
  20. 20M.A.C.Make the product for the makeup artist first, and let the professional's endorsement sell it to everyone else.10 min
  21. 22BoseStay private, give the company to a university, and spend on research the way a public company never could.13 min
  22. 23XboxLose billions to buy a seat in the living room, then change the product from a box to a subscription.13 min
  23. 24PlayStationSell the console at a loss, make the money on every disc, and let a betrayal by Nintendo start the whole thing.10 min

Next · 22

Bose

Stay private, give the company to a university, and spend on research the way a public company never could.