‘Berlusconi was always an entrepreneur,’ recalls [Fedele] Confalonieri, and he took an entrepreneurial approach to creating the party.
He analysed the market, he saw what was lacking and he created a product to fill the gap he perceived – the market gap.
I remember him saying to me:
‘In the political marketplace today there is only one product on offer, the left. Let’s compare the left to a soft drink – let’s say it is a bitter drink. What is missing in the market is an alternative, a sweet drink.’
So he figured that if this alternative product did not exist in the marketplace then we had to create a new product and offer it to the Italians.
That was the way he thought of politics, like an entrepreneur with a marketing plan to launch a new brand.
from Alan Friedman's 'My Way: Berlusconi In His Own Words'
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016DE6C7Q/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_x_rdthAb5F6GCB0