It’s Coming | The Next Economic Revolution

by RJ

in Making Money

It’s not only coming, it’s here.

We’re at the beginning of the entrepreneurial revolution.

The time and cost it takes to build a profitable business is now minimal. The amount of upside is huge.

This is mostly due to the Internet.

The Internet connected developers and programmers, who started the open source movement. Now it doesn’t take seven figures to start a business. Look at what one man built with just $12,107.09. (It’s gotten cheaper since.)

The Internet lowered the time it took to reach a customer. There isn’t a lead time of 60 or 90 days before finding out if you  have a market. Now a business can put up a few adword campaigns and web pages, and in hours to test the market.

With faster lead times, the time it takes to become profitable has also lowered. No longer do companies have to pay employees for 3 or 4 months or even a year, before they find out they are profitable. Profits are now measured in days.

The Internet gave us better education. Books, magazines, and newspapers have their limits. You can learn anything you want, in any format you want, in seconds.

How to Prepare for the Next Economic Revolution

As with most revolutions, the mainstream will be a few years behind. Then complain, once they realize what’s been going on for years.

Lucky for you, you can start preparing now for the entrepreneurial revolution by:

  1. Diversifying your Income – The days in which you receive one steady paycheck for years at a time, will be gone. Instead, you’re a free agent.  In a span of a year, you can potentially work for multiple companies. Many times, even more than one company at a time. Income will be high one month and next to nothing the next.
  2. Investing in Yourself – If you want to survive the next economic revolution, you’re going to have to invest in yourself. You’re going to need to learn the skills that are in demand. Your not only competing with others locally for a job, but competing worldwide. Your ability to stay ahead of the learning curve, will be key yo your success.
  3. Keeping Fixed Expenses Low – Flexibility will become an asset. By keeping fixed expenses low, more doors are open to you. Instead of taking the steady job with higher pay, you can take the unknown which pays less now but has more upside, and not to mention stock options.
  4. Building your Resume Portfolio – You have two resumes; LinkedIn and Google. LinkedIn is your chance to build an organized resume. Although, instead of a resume, think of  your LinkedIn profile the same an artist does a portfolio. Let your work speak for itself. Your other resume is the action of someone Googling your name. It’s your job to keep what’s at the top of Google positive.
  5. Networking – Not much changes here. The good jobs, will come from your own network. Let the rest of the world to compete on price.

It’s All Positive

I can’t help but think each and everyone of these changes is positive. All leads to more freedom for the individual. As long as the work you do is in demand (you have control over this), you can work where you want, when you want, and most importantly, on what you want. I can’t think of a better atmosphere for innovation.

I just touched on this subject. Make sure to read the following posts for a better perspective.

For a much better perspective on this, check out Steve Blank’s article, When It’s Darker Men See the Stars, which inspired this post.

Also check out Tim Ferrris’s  latest post, to see case studies of how profitable companies were built with low capital.

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Photo by: NotSoGoodPhotography

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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Briana @ GBRNo Gravatar December 3, 2010 at 12:58 pm

I think that should be the focus for everyone in this new decade we’re in, especially with the economic crisis we had. Many people found themselves in a bad situation where income was just not coming in. Also investing in yourself is huge, especially when it comes to education. The more skills you’re armed with, the better you can market yourself. Those are the 2 things I’m focusing the most on

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PatrickNo Gravatar December 3, 2010 at 7:48 pm

When the results of failure only set you back a few weeks/months instead of crippling you for years then the more risks people will take and the more choices society will have to pick the winners and losers.

Will this be the end of the big major companies though? If big companies can’t stay big then the stock market will surely have correcting and lose value.

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