Business schools tell us that it’s all about the bottom line and add that we should use leadership skills to motivate the workforce. Now, after the #metoo movement, people are starting to take the triple bottom line, or at least the human aspect of business, more seriously. We’ve gone from green-washing to real changes with long-term sustainability over short-term profitability as a mainstream idea. What’s driving that? Consumers and their willingness to pay more for good.
Consumers are also willing to pay for convenience in a way we’ve never seen before. My friend Sloan Foster is the CEO of a startup that provides a concierge vehicle transport service that allows owners to get their car picked up, fixed, and dropped off without having to leave the comfort of their home or office. Just 5 years ago would this have been a market consideration? Oh and by the way, they hire veterans to support their transition into civilian life. It’s both doing good and providing high-end customer service.
We are building products and services that are so human-centric, anything less is considered bad design. Some industries have embraced this fact more readily than others. Whereas e-commerce has changed the face of retail, other aspects of life are still primarily analog and they remain so because no market leader has led the charge and they haven’t been sexy enough to be the focal point of startup attacks. That’s now changing.
Startup founders are pouring into un-sexy, traditional and highly regulated industries because they are the last blue ocean. The precedent has been set and consumer expectations continue to grow. Rethinking business models to provide better service at lower cost is possible with the proliferation of cheap, scalable technology. If you’re in an untouched industry, beware, change is coming. I suggest you build the future before someone else does.