The other day I gave a presentation to Singularity University’s group of alumni on the disruptive forces which are changing the landscape of entrepreneurship. I my work as the track chair for entrepreneurship we identified three main drivers which are significantly shifting the way companies are built and operate.
1 — Scale
Today you can seamlessly reach a good chunk of the world’s population. 1.5 billion people on Facebook, hundreds of millions on WeChat, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp… Nearly everyone (who is online) on Google and Co.
And it’s not only reach — you can find your suppliers on Alibaba, outsource your distribution infrastructure and hire specialists on UpWork.
2 — Cost
You rent your servers on Amazon’s Web Service for a penny an hour; you build your application on top of millions of lines of Open Source code and you reach a global audience for a handful of dollars spent on Google or Facebook.
Your tools of production are free or cheap, pay-as-you-go solutions. A $xx monthly fee at TechShop gives you access to laser cutters, 3D printers, CNC machines and all the power tools you can dream of.
3 — Speed
Lean startup and rapid prototyping redefined the way we build products and companies. What was a year-long, error-prone process of build, release and pray is now a day-long iterative exercise in rapid customer validation.
We are turning conjectures into actuals at an ever increasing pace with less and less resources.
Combined, these three factors — Scale, Cost and Speed — are disrupting entrepreneurship from the ground up.