The Business Trendsetter Podcast

CNN spent $300M-$500M and 2 years creating CNN+. Only to have new owners Discovery Network shut down the project 2 weeks after launch.  Smart to save money? Not hardly.  This podcast explains why in a market moving as fast as streaming entertainment killing a White Space project is really, really dumb.  Discovery leadership has decided it doesn’t need to learn anything, nor innovate. They already...

GROWTH REQUIRES MOVING OUTSIDE YOUR COMFORT ZONE Changing the way we do business can seem risky, but it is less risky than being late to market shifts. You need to find a way to align your business with emerging trends in order to grow your business and remain relevant. What's the problem? Comfort!!  The Status Quo is Comfortable: - We know how to do what we’ve always done - We are good at doing w...

We almost always define our Value Proposition too narrowly. Because we wear the blinders of our existing products/solutions and business model. We get so tied up in delivery we forget the real reason customers value us.  This causes us to miss abundant opportunities to grow.   Do people buy antacids so they stop pain, or do they buy antacids so they can enjoy eating? Do people buy lawn fertilizer...

If you don’t know why people buy your stuff, you have no chance at success.  You must know your customers’ needs – especially the unmet or under-met needs.  Then you give them solutions that meet those needs.  Success isn’t from just being “more, better, faster, cheaper” than the other guy.  Success comes from understanding needs, and offering the best solution to fill those needs – especially as...

Big corporations get most product development wrong. They have a customer, and they just want to sell that customer a little bit more.  They keep trying to satiate an already known need with new variations.  Entrepreneurs often get product development wrong, because they have a solution in need of a market.  An "answer" looking for a "question."  The entrepreneur has a product/business and they ar...

Global trade has become the norm.  Ever since Nixon went to China we've been pushing supply chains global for lower cost.  Global supply chains are so prolific we don't even think about them any more. No longer.  The long-term mega-trend of globalization is taking a severe turn in reverse.  Trust is broken, and all the indicators say there is a lot of risk in international supply chains.  But this...

This podcast interviews Sunmeet Jolly, entrepreneur and founder of start-up company Grotu.  Grotu is using all the 2020-2030 Trend Drivers - mobility, asynchronous interactions, AI and the Gig Economy - in its start-up.  Listen to the decision-making process and how Grotu leadership is growing its MAU (monthly active users) and DAU (daily active users) to build a base for generating future revenue...

Lots of thoughts abound for why Russia would invade Ukraine. But as business people we can understand that demographic shifts have started to impact national policy in not only the USA, but in Russia and China as well. It would be a big mistake for business people to ignore the importance of demographic trends and how they are pushing Russia and China toward expansionist activities.  These pressur...

The founder of Squarespace is now worth ~$3B. He saw the long-term trend in media away from controlled, edited content and toward democratization. So he invested his small sums in podcasting, and now those small investments are measured in billions.  This long-term trend has continued, and now we all have access to enormous amounts of free content for entertainment and education.  Are you using th...

Meta reported a .05% decline in Daily Active Users, and projected a 3-11% growth rate for 2022 last week.  And the company's value fell by over $200B.  Another record set by Facebook - lol.  But not a laugh for investors. Was this market reaction justified? This podcast delves deeper into what's happening with trends, including the rise of Tik-Tok and Snap, as well as the trend toward MetaVerse in...

Market changing events are not linear. Small incremental changes, driven by internal improvements, do not change markets. Markets shift when external events cause a "Punctuated Equilibrium" that forces us to adapt to emerging trends rapidly.  The COVID pandemic was just such an external event that punctuated the old ways of doing business and ushered in new ways of doing business, accelerating tre...

In the pandemic we unleashed asynchronous work methods. No longer were we required to all go to an office everyday. No longer were we sucked into time-wasting meetings.  We learned we could work asynchronously, focusing on doing our work, was much more productive.  Doing our work alone increased productivity, with asynchronous interchanges using email, text and other tools supporting that producti...

Autonomous processes are those which use technology to monitor inputs, and make decisions without human involvement.  This started 40 years ago with programmable thermostats to control indoor temperature, leading to programmable lights and other products that lower use of energy.  These solutions have grown significantly. Today Amazon has created autonomous buying bots to help us shop. Companies a...

Companies have never had a requirement to be responsible to their employees, suppliers or community.  Leaders have only had a responsibility to their investors. Thus, very little time or resources were spent by companies trying to be environmentally friendly or socially aware.  But in the last 5 years a real movement has been created to push investors to force companies to be more environmentally...

The Environmental Awareness mega-trend is having a big impact on all businesses today, and will continue to do so for 20 years.  Businesses that seize the opportunity can profitably grow, while those that ignore the changes will suffer negative consequences. This podcast overviews why electric vehicles are part of this trend, and why the transition from internal combustion to batteries is unstoppa...

It's easy to say that big trends like an aging demography, or environmental awareness - or even new technologies related to artificial intelligence (AI) or augmented reality (AR.)  It's also easy to look at what's happened last year (2021) and plan for an extension in 2022.  Or WORSE is to look back to 2019 and plan for a return to business practices before the pandemic.  All of those approaches w...

In 2022 every company needs to think of itself as a tech company.  Amazon, Tesla, Netflix have value delivery systems in retail, autos and media.  But their success has everything to do with how they implement and manage technology, including software development. This podcast dives into how you can hire resources to help you develop software that will make your business more successful. All compa...

We create our own obstacles to growth. We just don't see them.  As we create our organizations we set up programs to do more, better, faster and cheaper.  We eliminate the people, and projects, that aren't directly tied to improving our business as it has existed. When we're ready to do something different, our organizations have the adaptability of concrete. Locked in place.  And we don't have an...

Recent reports of runaway inflation in the USA are fabricated. By comparing a single quarter to another single quarter, compared to a single quarter a year ago, popular media said that inflation was the greatest in 30 years. And that simply wasn't true.  First, one quarter does not make a trend. Second, 6% inflation is not "runaway."A year ago, that quarter prices were deflated by the pandemic. Th...

Recently Facebook changed its name to Meta. This podcast explains why this is a good thing for the company both when communicating, and as part of its strategy.   Meta is really 3 extremely important platforms.  Facebook the website, which is the most popular website in the world. Instagram, which challenges YouTube as the most popular video site.  And WhatsApp which is the biggest platform for te...

Sears closed its last Illinois store last week.  You're probably surprised they still had any open.  GE announced it is splitting what little is left of the company into 3 pieces, and you most likely thought GE was already as small as it could get.  Despite magnificent histories, in less than 2 decades these 100 year old companies have lost all relevance, and their very survival. This podcast reve...

As the pandemic ends, there is enormous pressure to "re-open." This phrase is mostly used to describe the hospitality industry, which was devastated by the lockdown and restrictive behavioral requirements of COVID-19.  Millions of jobs were lost, airlines placed in jeopardy, hotels and restaurants failed, and prices have risen while services have fallen.  Many are asking, what's the new trend? Thi...

Often people see changes in their market. And they see new opportunities being created. Yet, despite awareness of new opportunities and the need to change far, far too often we don't change. We don't implement changes to overcome threats, and we miss out on new growth opportunities.  Even when we know we should.  Why not? This podcast goes over how "best practices" causes us to "lock-in" our busin...

Do you plan for 2022 and beyond by looking at 2021 and backward?  How does that make any sense? When Blockbuster Video built its future plans based on past success, where did it end up? In the movie "Cannonball Run" one of the racers rips the rear view mirror off the car, throws it out the window and says "What's behind me is not important!" And the same can be said about your business.  Your comp...

It is easy to ignore small changes in a long-term trend. But these small changes add up to big changes - creating a "punctuated equilibrium" where the entire marketplace shifts.  Too often we become accustomed to our surroundings, and we miss the small evolutionary changes. We fail to see how trends add up, creating a major shift.  There is also a tendency to omit planning for changes we cannot co...