Chik-fil-a + Technology Commercialization
How the Chicken Sandwich is the most apt analogy for effective technology commercialization
The most scalable sort of entrepreneurship these days have some essence of technology in their gameplan. However, pure technology plays have the most to learn from Chik-fil-a.
- Chik-fil-a created something basic, but unique and protected with something - in this case their marketing and intense focus.
- Technology is not an end in itself, but simply a tool to enable some outcome.
- You don’t need to invent the platform, you just need to build a scalable, high profit, monopoly around a certain platform.
Today the internet, mobile computing, and other platform technologies are the new chicken. There are so many possibilities on top of such a powerful, connective platforms. All you need to do is pick a problem, a business model, and run with it.
Additionally, technologies like the car, SMS Texting, radio, GPS, drones, and electricity took decades to adopt as a society. Today we don’t simply appreciate these technologies, but consider them essential capabilities. This all occurred because the right people, luckily, built a business on top of proven technologies.
On that note, my research over the next year will likely focus on better understanding the adoption and cost curves of various technologies. Very similar to Ray Kurzweil I hope to leverage the insights to be on both sides of the table: enabling the trends as well as responding to them. This also sets precedent for a future blog post about the “second-mover” advantage, which I highly believe in in regards to technology commercialization.
Remember the mantra: I didn’t invent _______, just ________
Google didn’t invent search, just the best organic results
Ford didn’t invent the car, just the process to make it cheap enough for everyone.
Whatever you fill in the second blank can change the world
