top of page
Search

A new way to think about Disruption

People get "Disruption" wrong.


It's not about tech.

Classic example is IKEA.


They Disrupted furniture by challenging the assumption that people would only buy premade items.


Decimating shipping costs changed unit economics profoundly.


Dyson disrupted the Vacuum market by challenging the assumption people wouldn't pay more than $300 for a machine and didn't care about them much.


Nespresso challenged the assumption people wouldn't spend 10x more to have a coffee at home, so long as it was far better.


Airbnb challenged the idea people wouldn't sleep in a strangers home


Uber challenged the idea people wouldn't get in a strangers car.


Amazon challenged the idea people wouldn't buy lots of things that they couldn't touch first.


YouTube challenged the idea that most people wouldn't be able to make good enough content themselves and if they did, they'd still be happy to give it away for free.



People assume it's about tech, it's about imagination and empathy. It's knowing what rules can be broken.


Most "disruptive" companies are not remotely disruptive. Allbirds shoes change little about the market, Netflix doesn't really alter that much about the rules of the TV business, Instacart is remarkably stupid idea and company, Carvana simply moves the cost to other places. We need more thought about what disruption changes the game and what simply uses modern tech.


2 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Long-termism in Loyaty

I opened a bank account with Midland Bank in 1989 and I fondly remember getting a dictionary, some stationary, and a nylon bag. I still have the bank account ( now with HSBC) and they've probably made

Leave the lemmings behind

Have you ever noticed how little imagination there is in tech and how lemming like the entire industry is? - 5G came along, $650bn was spent, and the use cases were always remote surgery ( often on fr

bottom of page