Creating Value vs. Harnessing Value
“Everything I read was public. Anyone could buy the same books and magazines. The same information was available to anyone who wanted it. Turns out most people didn’t want it”.
This quote is from billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, on when he came to be involved with computers as a young man. He found a growth sector (personal computers and software), learnt everything he could about it by obsessively reading manuals and textbooks, then passed that public information on to others in the form of guidance and products.
A big, big question when starting businesses is this: how do I create and deliver value for the consumer? Cuban (and many others in a myriad different sectors) altered this question to suit his own model, asking not how they could create value, but how they could harness it.The value was out there, waiting to be passed on to customers. Cuban just transferred it to them in ways they could understand and appreciate.
The link from this idea to this website is pretty clear: the tools necessary to make oneself more employable are available – in fact they are available to pretty much everyone – and they’re usually free. I’m not creating new skills or ideas, just harnessing those that already exist. All one needs to invest is what Mark Cuban invested: hard work and time.
It’s also worth considering that line about working in a ‘growth sector’. It pays vast dividends to be in an industry that the rest of the world doesn’t quite know it needs yet. By this I don’t mean the sectors where the sellers tell themselves “everyone will love this product, we just have to convince them”. I mean the sectors where buyers suddenly have an epiphany and realise that the world has gone in a particular direction and they have to find someone who can help them stay in the game.
The world suddenly realised that personal computers and software were going to be a rather big deal, and Mark Cuban was perfectly placed to help. If you can become an expert (and I mean a genuine leading authority) in that sort of future sector, it’ll be truly hard not to end up a success.