Milking the cow…
The average cow can produce up to 30 liters a day.
If you’re a farmer with 100 cows that means you’ll be able to produce 3000 liters a day.
Or more than a million liters a year.
With the ability of giving milk for about 5–6 years and about 8 births a cow, this looks like a healthy business for the next few decades or so.
Unless things change.
And they always do…
New competitors enter the market.
Prices drop.
Substitutes are found.
Demand drops.
Regulations change.
And on and on and on.
And when any of this happens the farmer is getting one step closer to going out of business.
It doesn’t happen over night.
It takes many years.
Or maybe even decades.
The process is so slow that it’s almost impossible to even notice.
And the longer the farmer waits to figure out what to do next, the harder it’ll get to be able to keep doing what she’s doing.
When people don’t want to drink cow milk anymore it doesn’t matter whether your milk is the best milk on the planet or the worst on the planet.
If you wait to change things until people don’t drink cow milk anymore and instead started drinking goat milk then it’s usually already too late.
Even if you’re trying to water down your milk so it tastes like goat milk, people will sooner or later find out and then you’re totally screwed.
This isn’t a story about farmers.
Or cows.
Or goats.
Or milk.
Or cars.
It’s a story about life.
And business.
And pretty much everything else out there…
Originally published at yanngirard.typepad.com.

