Your stakeholders are your initial start up cost and financing, they will leave you or force your business to do things out of scope of what they envision because they have a set ROI in their head. They will run boards, run a CEO out, bring one in, give a CEO too much money ... etc. The stakeholders add variation to a business outside of the scope of the work ... and being so they are virtually unmanageable. They can be appeased at times, but the business does not have control over them.

Your customers, for the most part, are temporary. Ideally you generate a loyal customer base and they return for your product, but we've seen that not be true. The rate of inflation leads people to pinch pennies and always seek out a lower price, the internet has made everyone a potential customer so chasing demographics is even more difficult, and add on, the scammers and being under cut (drop shippers, ebay, alibaba) your customers are not even always people that end up with the product, it's usually just the market place.

So the level of unpredictability means you can't fully service them. The places that are currently successful aren't chasing customers, they're corralling them via targeted digital marketing, purchased consumer data, and elevating own brands to the top of their platforms, all will cannibalizing competitors.

There are customers right now that are loyal to a bike brand but amazon has skewed the idea of "free" shipping so far out of whack that they'll expect a small bike brand to offer free shipping (80 dollars cost without insurance) on a $300 bike.


In the end. The only thing right now you have is your employees. Those are the people who's lives directly impact your day to day capacity to meet your mission, to adjust your strategy, their cost is directly quantifiable, their productivity value is directly quantifiable, and their skills and network will allow you to adapt to the ever evolving dynamic or get swept in the tide. They can be your customer, ad rep, marketing, and outreach all in one, just by virtue of paying them right and treating them right.