Finding Opportunity in Upheaval
The great economist Joseph Schumpeter popularized the phrase "creative destruction" to explain what primes the engine of capitalism: violent market upheaval. New products topple mature ones. Decaying old companies give way to young innovative competitors. If a business stands still, capitalism will soon sweep it into the dust bin of history.
Safe to say that Schumpeter would find the current business environment challenging but also a time with much opportunity for the nimble entrepreneur. As innovation expert Scott D. Anthony writes on Harvard Business Publishing:
"Real customers continue to face real problems. And as always, innovators who figure out different ways to solve those problems -- and make money doing so -- will have opportunities to create new growth businesses. In fact, the creative destruction unleashed by a crisis always opens up opportunities for innovation."
Anthony, the president of innovation consultancy Innosight, offers up the success story authored by On Deck Capital as an example.
The firm, occupying a funding niche somewhere between small banks and venture capital, offers loans to small businesses based on software algorithms rather than debt-to-asset formulas. Only six months old, On Deck Capital has written some $10 million in loans, with very few defaults.
"The current credit crisis and hesitancy of many banks to loan to even the best-run small businesses creates substantial opportunity for On Deck to extend its model," Anthony writes.
What are the market opportunities you see emerging from today's turbulent headlines?