Posts Tagged free

Well, Chris Anderson over at WIRED just published yet another article that is sure to get its fair share of praise.  I’m sure it will gain a following and eventually be another book, following up “Free” and “The Long Tail“, both of which essentially started as articles in the mag.  I will start by saying I’m a fan of Chris and his work.  Those two books are some of my favorite business-ish books. Well, on to the article.  This latest incarnation of thought is titled “The New Industrial Revolution” as it is emblazoned on the cover of the February 2010 issue, or “Atoms are the New Bits” as titled within (I don’t know what they want it called).  The line of thought in this piece can be seen not only in Chris’s previous works but many strains of it can be seen throughout WIRED over the past few years. One of the key points that I’d like to highlight regards community & open-source development.

As seen in both Free and The Long Tail, community and open-source are the future of industry, advancement, and entrepreneurship. Even large, blue chips are taking part to some degree.  Take Microsoft’s decisions to open beta-test its latest Windows and Office packages as an example.  Other companies are entirely based on these community participation models. This free or near-free participation and approach has been tested, and proven, with the web and the constant content generation found there. Now, as can be interpolated from the article title, the open-source and open availability of these digital bits is being translated into near-free atoms! Actual physical products and goods are the next step to prove the concept of opensource.  As we translate all the content, development, and innovation of the web into physical products, entrepreneurial opportunity will explode and prices, competition, and innovation will accelerate at levels unseen. Now, resistance will obviously occur, but pressing forward will yield tremendous return.  Threadless is one company that is a common example of this opensource bits-to-atoms process, and a good one at that.  They have demonstrated the win-win possibilities of the model in creating not only more unique, high-quality products but at reasonable prices with low-overhead, high profit business returns. This is only the beginning, of course, as Chris introduces us to much more complex possibilities than t-shirts.

Take Local Motors as an example that he mentions.  They have actually begun production on a car that was designed and voted on by a community, in fashion of Threadless’ t-shirts.  It will be built mostly using “after-market” parts and assembled individually as orders come in.  Interestingly, Local Motors follows a model described in another WIRED article found back in June here. Currently Local Motors is coming out as a niche company, giving little competition to the major car conglomerates but that will likely change as Local Motors develops or others come into the game.  This is only the beginning! Local’s design-to-market turn around is a distant dream to any detroit competition.  As Chris states:

the company says it can take a new vehicle from sketch to market in 18 months, about the time it takes Detroit to change the specs on some door trim.

Even better is the open availability of the design plans under creative commons license.  This allows components, add-ons, mods, and more to be created by anybody, unveiling countless other business possibilities. This is just one example of companies taking technology, community, and open-source to the world of physical products, to “atoms”.  Many other examples may not scale like Local Motors nor have the desire to do so.  The fact is many small entrepreneurial ventures, with today’s technology and tools, have the opportunity to compete with the behemoths or simply fill niches that are untouchable by them.  It is a beautiful thing to behold.  And we aren’t talking about the digital realm here.  This is manufacturing, production, products, this is atoms!  With simple tools such as 3D printers (for less than a grand), access to custom limited-run manufacturing at remarkably affordable prices (thanks again internet), and open community feedback, the opportunity pool is much deeper than it used to be!  Even nuclear power is being approached with this technique as I discussed here regarding yet another WIRED article.  Like I said, this theme can be seen throughout their articles over the last while.

So what does all this mean for the entrepreneur?  Well, if you haven’t picked it up already, its all about endless opportunity and open, community development of ideas!  With that in mind, what do you think? Any other great examples of similar business models in use?  Let me know!!