Adapt or die

I had an interesting conversation this morning. While discussing how client’s competitor was on the verge of filing chapter 11 we got around to one of their vendors being delisted from NASDAQ. In this case, a vendor whose business model has not changed while the market has changed, significantly, around them. And rest assured, this didn’t take Nostradamus to see. Their sales have been down every quarter since 2002 yet to look at their product line you would think it was 1995.

Businesses, especially entrepreneurial and small businesses love to say that success is reason enough. And while that’s true, it’s an exceptionally narrow view. It’s an unchanging one. It’s not a view that encourages introspection and thought.

No one owes you a successful business model. You have to be constantly re-evaluating the market and changing with it. As I said, adapt or die. The music industry is perhaps one of the most vivid examples of this. A once thriving and profitible industry, as a whole, is now mostly irrelevant because rather than change with the market, they tried, as most businesses do, to reshape the trends to benefit them. And we know how that is turning out.

Sure, there are exceptions but very few. Much more prevelant are the examples of those who the business version of Darwin wasn’t so kind to. The buggy whip makers, the town gas distributors and the like. Keep your eyes open. Listen to your customers and change with the market.

There’s another bunch of new photos up at the Flickr Gallery. Some racing stuff, some dandelions and some vintage material as well.