7.0 Conclusion
What did I discover?
Investigating two domains — disruption and startup development — which both deal with uncertainty and the future, I found their important role in the current massive transformation of the analogue traditional era to the digital. Theories of disruption are also constantly rethinking and updating themselves due to the current reality.
The need for disruption, just as the element of need operating in any fact of life, can be contested. But definitely digital disruption has the right focus — it appeals to people’s fundamental needs and solves their problems with better, faster and cheaper solutions. Since digital became closer to people’s needs and deals with human nature than ever before, it reveals its paradox. On the one hand, disruption serves as a part of human nature as the trigger for new step: new behavior and evolution process prove this. On the other, it takes time for accepting and adapting to this new behavior. Therefore disruptive startups are first met as odd ideas and thus disruptors need different personal skills such as leadership, patience and a true passion to bring the idea to the world.
This also explains why disruption mostly happens in the startup area. Startups in comparison to incumbents are light and have nothing behind them — no shadows, echoes or memories, especially of anything that “didn’t work” — and all their energy moves to achieve their intention. The current environment encourages a startup stage with different methodologies, events and investors where incumbents also may take part.
The combination and cooperation showed its power even in the disruptive mindset — new ideas do not come from just anywhere; rather, they are a combination of existing ideas and patterns; however, a disruptive innovative idea should have some special combination that through experiments and mental agility finally bring this new vision to the world and become a part of people’s lives and make some existing incumbents with their current value chain unhappy. Even among disruptors it happens: Yahoo was overtaken by Google, MySpace by Facebook. But this is life and everything is changing. Digital enhances this effect. It proves that disruption is not lies in the idea, but in its implementation and opportunity, how it interacts with customers. Through these interactions new opportunities arise. For example, through Airbnb, people rent bikes, even islands, exploring possibilities that even the founders would never have expected.
What is the practical value of my research?
A framework combined the essential parts for a startup to heighten its disruptive potential. The core of the framework is the fit of a value proposition and customers’ jobs, pains and gains. The disruptive potential depends on disruptor’s values that through his skills can appeal to and satisfy the customers’ fundamental needs.
The stages of startup development are essential but not unique. They refer to my experience while developing the Circle of Life startup.
Circle of Life has disruptive potential, but can’t be named as a disruptive startup until it is brought to the market step by step and achieves its goal.
The findings of this research can be helpful to startup entrepreneurs in pursuing their strategic intent of creating disruptive projects and to thereby enhance their chances of taking off and attracting investments at the next stage.
