Swimming like the sharks

The business world would be much healthier and more profitable if businesses saw innovation like sharks see swimming.

Sharks need to swim to survive.  They don't get to rest once they get their morning workout in or when they become the fastest swimmer in their part of the ocean or when they hit their quarterly earnings goal.  According to Professor James Kitchell, sharks have to swim to stay buoyant, to breath, to survive.  Business should innovate for the same reasons.

The innovation pattern is familiar to everyone except, apparently, companies going through it.  A company or an entrepreneur comes up with an innovation that happens to match the needs of the marketplace.  They start a company or a brand.  Sometimes, if they are lucky, the company or entrepreneur continues to innovate as their company or brand grows.

Eventually, though, success ensues.  Sometimes wild, highly profitable success ensues.  The problem then is that with success usually comes risk aversion.  You see, humans like success and we tend to want to hang onto it.  It is hard to force yourself to act like that hungry entrepreneur and throw caution to the wind to support new innovations.  It is much more comfortable to continue to ride the gravy train that your past innovations have put you on.

The problem with that is that there are always new gunslingers entering Dodge, ready to knock off the top dog.   Entrepreneurs who are still hungry have you in their sights and have nothing to lose by going after you.

A smart, successful company recognizes this and tries to knock itself out of the top spot with a new innovation.  But that is hard to do.  Ask Microsoft.  It wasn't that long ago when there were predictions that Microsoft would rule the world before long.  Then along came Yahoo and all of the sudden Microsoft didn't even rule their product category.  Then Google came into town.  And now Google has countless younger, more nimble companies nipping at its heals, trying to knock it off.  At times, business seems like a giant game of King of the Hill!

Like sharks, excellent companies figure out a way to continue to keep moving.  They innovate like crazy.  They fix things that aren't broken.  They keep swimming.


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• There isn't one shark

The Boom and Bust of the Last Buggy Whip Manufacturer

The last buggy whip manufacturer must have done very well for a while.*  Buggy whip purchases undoubtedly declined rapidly with the advent of the automobile.  Nevertheless, there was still a demand for them as some people were reluctant to adapt to the new "iron horses," some people couldn't afford the new transportation option and others couldn't get one because there was no one selling automobiles in their area.

As demand for buggy whips faded, buggy whip manufacturers would go out of business, consolidating the market with fewer and fewer companies.  At some point, there was probably only one company making the whips in a market.  For a while, enjoying 100% market share, things were probably pretty good for that last company.  But since demand continued to decline, eventually business would turn sour for that last company, eventually forcing them to close their doors.

Unless.

Unless that last buggy whip manufacturer looked up from their work long enough to see the dark clouds on the horizon.  Unless that last company invested in the future, figuring out how they could leverage their expertise into something new.  Perhaps manufacturing items for Mr. Ford's assembly line.  Perhaps getting out of transportation altogether and finding a niche somewhere else.

Things haven't really changed that much in the last 120 years.  We have a lot of buggy whip manufacturers these days.  Some are thinking things are OK because market share keep going up, not even realizing they are the last one of their kind around.  Others are innovating and changing their future.  We live in times of rapid change.  Just about the only thing you can be sure of these days is that sooner or later, you will be working for a buggy whip manufacturer.  Be prepared.


*All buggy whip-related statements are pure conjecture on the part of the author.  No research on the rise or fall of the buggy whip industry was conducted.  If a reader HAS done such research and finds my conjecture lacking, I ask them to please explain my oversights and shortcomings in the comments.  Please also explain why you are doing research into the rise and fall of the buggy whip industry.