The Internet Business Tidal Wave is Coming
As an entrepreneur, are you ready for the massive internet business tidal wave that is coming? I believe that the internet, more specifically the web as we currently understand it, is going to revolutionize many industries of traditional business throughout the next couple to few decades. I can already see it happening and have a futurist vision for how it may play out to an extraordinary scale throughout the future. This revolutionary shift is not simply a new platform opportunity for savvy professional entrepreneurs & business teams to out-innovate, out-market, and out-service our less savvy or less determined peers. Rather, this is a massive tidal wave of competition coming from everyday people that is likely to become a concern and/or opportunity for even professional grade entrepreneurs & business teams.
It’s Social Media’s Fault
I believe that the primary thing that this coming tidal wave can be attributed to is the recent social media revolution that has occurred within the past few years. Before a few years ago, the internet was largely viewed as either a place to shop, research, or spend time being a geek. Although this wasn’t necessarily true, this was the general perception of many throughout modern society. With Web 2.0 advancements and the proliferation of social media, it is now quite normal in modern society for people to maintain an online life that has genuine personal meaning and is often integrated into their real life. More and more people of all demographics are participating on social networking sites, becoming members of online groups, connecting with new people online, consuming media online, and creating media online. A tipping point of broadband internet connectivity, internet usage & understanding, and modern web apps occurred that brought about an opportunity for people & businesses to more efficiently & effectively connect and express themselves to a degree where it became normal and therefore a positively expected behavior. As more people throughout the world get online with faster internet connections and a greater sophistication for consuming, developing, and distributing value online, this massive internet business tidal wave will happen. Although this may have been a predictable outcome of the web’s natural progression anyway, I believe social media is a big shift in that evolution that can be pointed to as a direct enabler of the type of environment needed for this. With the online environment of a few years ago, none of this was likely. Now, with the fully engaged environment around social media online, the foundation is set for everyday people to begin pursuing quality business opportunities, and they have been.
What The Tidal Wave Will Look Like
It will become the norm for most people to have a business or side project of their own, largely via the web, with economic earning potential. Many of these online businesses and many people in general will consistently produce content of value online. Since the world will be flooded with these businesses and their offerings, most businesses will naturally shift to super-serving a hyperniche. More forms of value through digital creations will evolve as humanity and the web does. If you are up on social media, then the basic description of this vision is nothing special and it isn’t meant to be sensationalized at all. It is simply a mass scaling effect of what is already happening. I believe that my company, Open Achievement, is a good example of a business that an everyday person may startup throughout the future.
How The Shift Will Progress
There are a few fundamental things that will likely cause this paradigm shift to progress and eventually achieve mass scale. But first, let me be clear, that this shift is already happening, so the following aren’t necessarily the fundamental causes. The fundamental cause is more the human drive for opportunity and success combined with the environmental platform that social media has created. Some key factors that will help scale this new wave of internet businesses from everyday people are…
- Greater Expertise: Relative to technologies like electricity, the automobile, the telephone, etc, people haven’t had computers and the internet for near as long. Our general understanding of them, how to use them, how to leverage them into personal accomplishments, etc, is still relatively low, overall. As more people throughout the world gain skills and insight with computers and the internet, this will enable more value to be produced from them.
- Greater Tools: At their base, computer hardware and the internet are simply technological platforms that everyday people have access to. However, in raw form, most people do not care to learn the computer programming skills necessary to make them useful in everyday life. It is largely the software developed by those who choose to be designers & developers that makes computer hardware and the internet useful. These tools are continuously improving and are making it much easier to accomplish much more at all levels of expertise. Hardware developments are extending the foundation for this software innovation too. Tools that support social connections, content creation, and business management are likely to have major impact with this shift.
To sum these factors up… Our personal capabilities will go up and the natural barriers of entry will go down for starting and building viable internet businesses. At that point, our human drive for success will take over and massively increasing numbers of people will continue to engage the internet for its opportunities.
A Few Personal Examples
Here are a few changes I’ve personally experienced so far in the past few years at the beginning of this shift…
- I’ve always been an idea person, so I’m always coming up with new good ideas, including business ideas. Just a few years ago, before the social media revolution, I would come up with good business ideas and often feel a sense of free reign to develop them into successful small enterprises. However, now, when I come up with new business ideas, I more often feel a sense of uncertainty due to potential competition from other entrepreneurs online and have pulled back from some ventures that I would have gone forward with a few years ago. This effect is only going to amplify over time.
- When I launch a business now, I rarely look offline for the primary means to conduct initial marketing efforts. I’ve found the internet to be much more cost effective in producing return on investment, especially in startup mode. In the past, it has been much more of a blend of online verses offline efforts.
This is Good for Humanity
Even though this shift may ultimately be more of a challenging environment to traditional professional entrepreneurs, like me, I definitely invite it to happen since it is good for humanity at large. Also, I already know how to capitalize big-time in this new environment, so I’m not personally threatened by it, but some established players will be, I’m sure. I don’t believe in holding back the positive progress of the world for the sake of a few self-serving elitists trying to protect their present income streams. I believe in adapting and fostering a more valuable platform for all to share in. This internet business tidal wave is going to help achieve a new paradigm for such goals like what Louis Kelso championed, where everyday people would have greater access to capital for producing value. I look forward to this paradigm shift in business and am going to work to position myself to support as many of these new wave entrepreneurs as I can.
