Create an Industry, Not Just a Company

Recently, I’ve been thinking about the idea of not just creating a company, but rather pioneering an entire industry. My previous post touched on this topic briefly in reference to autonomous vehicles, but now I want to examine this idea in a broader sense.

It seems that many start-ups have the limited thinking of simply creating a company that is similar to other companies in the way it creates products or services. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with this kind of healthy competition to make things better, but creating an industry is more forward-thinking, and in the long run, more valuable.

While no small task, if you set your sights on creating an industry, you are setting out to build a new system with the potential to cause a paradigm shift. A paradigm, by definition, is a pattern or standard set of ideas. By creating a paradigm shift, you are effectively shifting the standards of what is expected.

To quote a proverb that has remained applicable through decades of innovation, “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime.” Your new industry will bring along with it new ways of doing business that can bring economic growth for a wealth of other businesses in a global market.

With Hyperloop, for example, there is the creation of a new industry of transportation that by nature requires infrastructure and additional supportive companies that spring up to supply everything from the building of the rails, to the design of the passenger cars, to the entertainment and comfort technology offered within the interior.

Ideally, this new industry will be one in which there will be free flow of ideas and exchanges of information that lead to better lives. I am always ready to hear your ideas for creating a new industry. Message me on Pishevar.com or follow me on Twitter for more.