Quite a long time ago, I was the co-founder and COO of a network infrastructure VAR. A small part of my role was to identify upcoming, niche hardware vendors and contract with them as their exclusive reseller in France.
I remember a meeting I organized with the first employee and country manager of a US vendor showcasing first-generation WiFi routers. After he delivered his pitch and quit the meeting room, I had a debrief session with my team. One of my reports said: “it will never work, nobody needs that, all PCs are already connected to the network (through Ethernet lines).”
At this time, it was reasonable to think so. Why bother installing WiFi antennas and routers and plugging WiFi dongles in PCs when Local Area Networks (LANs, as we called them) already equipped most businesses?
Well, we all know what happened thereafter. Now it seems strange to physically connect your laptop to a network infrastructure; Wifi is everywhere.
It’s difficult to see the future when it plays in front of your very eyes
I have been lucky to witness the early days of Cisco and Salesforce. At that time, it was just young companies offering new products that nobody really asked for. Having a bandwidth of 2Mbps and using Siebel was good enough.
Unfortunately, I didn’t buy their shares when they IPOed…because it’s difficult to see the future when it plays in front of your very eyes. What happens then is that you believe everyone also witnesses what you see; I took it for granted that everyone knew Cisco and Salesforce and understood their magic.
In fact, most of the time, you are well ahead of the curve, and it will take years before a significant number of people discover and understand new products and services.
How can you identify the future when you see it? Well, the future is attracting outliers, people that are relentlessly searching for more in their personal or professional lives. We call them champions or early adopters. If this group is fond of a new product, then there are many reasons to believe it will be part of the future. Elon Musk also seems to have a special bond with the future, so you should follow what he does :-)
What may vary is the speed at which an innovation deploys. Sometimes it will take a few years and create decacorns and billionaires; sometimes, it will take decades and leave pioneers on the sidewalk.
Venture Capital has a prime role in catalyzing the future, just because their investments can accelerate this deployment velocity and push the innovation in front of many more eyes.
"Every man takes the limits of their own vision for the limits of the world"
Arthur Schopenhauer
And now to my conclusion:
If you’re an executive for an established company, you should never dismiss new technologies or services that may disrupt your activity. You should be very cautious in detracting or lobbying against the future because it will signal your denial and weakness. How many times did I see aging companies claiming that customers still preferred their product by a large margin; hum…wait until more people use the innovation; it will open your eyes. You’d better try to partner with the future.
If you’re a start-up founder, the best way to predict the future is to create it. Instead of trying to find Product-Market Fit (PMF), which basically means designing an incremental product that the market can understand, why not reach for the stars and create a new market, a new category? Stare at iPhones, Amazon, Uber, Tesla, AI, mRNA vaccines, blockchain, etc. There was no unfulfilled demand for those new category leaders like there was no demand for WiFi. Work on your investor pitch deck and let them envision the future you’re creating. Watch how Jack Conte explains how Patreon catalyzes the pending demand for creator networks.
If you’re a citizen, you should not bet against the future, which means every attempt to deny progress is frustrating and useless. You may think that this progress is non-sense and that things were better before, sure. But if a majority of people go that way, adapt and adopt! Instead of over-reacting, maybe you could start investing in people and companies that are creating the future! At last, a controversial question: is the future in planet preservation or space exploration?
The future is bright, and it will happen whatever you believe.
Let it come to you and relax!