Transcript excerpt from a Business Entrepreneur podcast (Aug 14, 2019 upload) featuring Entrepreneur James discussing the necessity for companies to adapt product and business models to changing markets. James recounts leaving a company whose leadership failed to evolve products, leading to a 25% revenue loss the following quarter; another speaker cites Blockbuster’s failure to adapt to Netflix as a parallel lesson. The piece emphasizes listening to market signals and using technology to pivot when needed.
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And ultimately, over the next year and a half, two years, as we tried to grow the business, it became clear that while the business model that we were trying to sustain had once been a powerful business model and very profitable, that same model was failing to evolve. And our leadership, the two owners of the company, were failing to listen to the market and to what was changing and were failing to do what was needed to adapt. And taking data from a raw form and transforming it into an experience that could be sold as opposed to data in a raw form, which was becoming more and more commoditized. So their failure to react to the market and build products and adapt their product, really, really, it really hurt them. I mean, they ended up losing 25% of their revenue base the quarter after I left because they refused to adapt their product to what the market needs.
Yeah. And I think that lesson is, for any business owner, I think, Jason, is when you fail to adapt, you see that a lot with the bigger companies like Blockbuster, who went bust because they didn't see Netflix coming. And when they did see it, it was too late, and they failed to adapt their business model and strategy around that. And I think in a growing economy where everything is focused around technology and how you can leverage technology to implement change and bigger profits and faster ways to market, it's very important to be right on the cutting edge of knowing when to cut your losses and losses and go down a different path when things are changing and environments are changing. So that's a really interesting share. So thanks very much.
