Red Bull

Red Bull tastes like cough syrup to plenty of people, costs more than a soda, and offers no formula advantage — yet it moves billions of cans a year and bankrolls Formula 1 teams and a live broadcast of a man jumping from the edge of space. Dietrich Mateschitz found the drink in Thailand in the 1980s and saw what most would have missed: the liquid was almost beside the point. He priced it high on purpose, because cheap would have killed the thing he was actually selling.

For founders and operators still leading with features and specs, this case reframes what a product even is. It sharpens the question of what your customer feels when they reach for you, and whether your marketing is built around that feeling or around ingredients. The move at the center — how Red Bull turned itself from a beverage company into something else entirely — is the part worth sitting with.