This post is an extract of my forthcoming book on business model innovation. The innovation book looks at why business model innovation is needed and how it works. You can read more about it here. These posts are early drafts of planned content and I’m putting them out to get feedback. Please do comment below, or subscribe to these pages to get each new section as it is published. In today’s post, we will be looking at finding opportunities in this new world
Why are You in Pain – Finding Opportunities
Lets look at this another way.
For the last twenty years, I’ve been involved in starting companies. As an entrepreneur I’ve had some successes, more failures. Helping many more entrepreneurs I’ve had a bird’s eye view of the world seen with entrepreneurial eyes.
A herd of antelope may worry about the lack of grazing, the strength of the sun or the lack of rain. These all hurt the herd. Lions don’t see this pain. They just see the opportunity.
This is what we have seen for decades. We’ve seen old tired industries that can be broken and disrupted. Like corporate raiders of the past, we’ve seen opportunities and dived in like vultures to peck the soft bits of dead and dying business models.
There’s been rich feeding.
Those metaphors may cheer or disgust you. What’s undeniable is that many people have seen opportunities and they have made trillions from it. In some cases just for themselves.
The Flip Side of Disruption
The flip side of change is that as it disrupts and breaks long-established traditions it also opens up the room to create new ones.
I’ve spent many years exploring the jungles of South East Asia. In many areas it’s possible to walk through the jungle at a brisk pace with no path at all. There’s enough space between the trees and the canopy, far above, s effective at catching the sunlight. So there’s little or no undergrowth.
These are wonderful places to walk.
What happens though is that the giant trees die and crash down. As they do they rip a huge hole in the canopy and let the sunlight in.
When that happens there is a huge bloom of diversity reaching up from the jungle floor. The variety of different plants in the clearing is staggering. They are all fighting to grow as fast as they can to flower and spread their seeds, or take over that canopial space.
That’s as good a metaphor as I’ve heard for the entrepreneurial process.
Entrepreneurs are not good at sprouting in many environments. In chapter X – we’ll look at those and ask why. Where they do see an opportunity they are fecund.
Seeing Beyond the Visible
So if you are in an industry that is suffering, flip the coin and ask what opportunity am I not seeing.
This is a recurring theme for this book. What don’t we see. What can’t we see. What won’t we see.
The visible is solid, practical and concrete. It offers stability, but rarely a lasting advantage.
Seeing beyond the visible gives opportunity and status.
Before we had a material-intellectual culture strength and speed, think of the Greek heroes of the Iliad, were highly prized. For those not blessed with the physique of an Achilles or a Hector, the competition was tough.
What happens though if you can see the gods, rather than acting in imitation of them?
So from about 6,500 years ago shamans and mystics cut the flesh away from there foreheads and cut part of their skulls away (without the benefit of whisky, anaesthetics or an A&E department) to create a third eye.
I have no evidence that shows that this delivered practical benefits – but that people practised it for so long suggests that there were powerful social and psychological benefits to being seen to have the second sight.
This is a book about business and finding opportunities.
I am not suggesting that you head down to your local clinic and ask for a trepanning session before going off to Asda or a round of golf.
There is a clear benefit to being able to see the world differently and this is what the next chapters will explore.
But first we’ll take a step back to the business books and ask ‘what is a business model and why is it important’
If You Want to Read More
I keep everything structured on my niftily titled business model innovation book page. Head there to browse, binge, read straight through or cherry pick. Please do take a moment to comment below or upvote comments that you agree with
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