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My partner and I have been talking about Darwinism a lot with respect to our businesses. We think this recession represents a huge opportunity to well operated business. Think about it, in really good times, just about anyone can survive, make money and stay in business. But when the environment becomes more difficult, only those businesses who are business who are best suited to the conditions will survive. Best suited can mean a lot of things, ability to adapt, better run, have a stockpile of resources etc. An analogy describes this in natural terms. Two Lion’s share one hunting ground when times are good and there is plenty of game around. When drought hits, the weaker Lion falters and eventually starves. The stronger Lion survives because they’re better suited and now has the entire hunting ground to themselves. When the drought breaks, this Lion still has that entire patch. The point is, that if you play this right, you can not only ‘survive’, you can come out the other side in a much much stronger position. Applying this theoretical approach to the real world, take Ben Kepes sarcastic post about SAP. If a competitor like Netsuite could prove to the market that they are by far a better proposition and actually put SAP out of business or so severely damage them that they retrench to a niche. The upside is huge, only one player in the field to win all the business. (I’m not suggesting this is likely BTW). If you buy into the SaaS proposition, then this is the opportunity this ‘recession’ now affords you. Check yourself out, do you have what it takes to not only survive, but to profit from this situation? If you are in old world businesses like my partner and I, how does this apply? Are your nearest competitors struggling? If so, what can you do to make it even tougher so that when the tide turns you are the only game in town. Some might view this as harsh, but survival of the fittest binary. Which one are you going to be?
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To use the hunting analogy, imagine you are in a hunting party. A lion spots you and decides you'll make a good lunch. You don't have to be the fastest (fittest) to survive, only faster than the slowest member of the group. Darwin is the lion :-)