Be Like New Zealand!
Andrew Wilkinson talked about going after companies that are like New Zealand. It’s a brilliant analogy and what his Private Equity firm, Tiny Capital focuses on.
Sometimes the best businesses are like New Zealand:
It’s food and energy independent and safe. Totally self sufficient. No middle man, minimal paid acquisition, no platform dependency.
Middle of nowhere, Hard to Invade: so forgotten by competitors and dominates a niche.
Stable democracy: Loyal and engaged user/customer base. Strong network of customers
These are very simple businesses that can grow over the long term. If these are digital, software businesses, they can also be incredibly scaleable in ways offline or service businesses are not. So for example, you can easily increase revenue 6-10X with the same amount of people and costs versus offline or service businesses where you need to add people in direct correlation as your business grows.
Now that markets are so global and large, the right niche can still end up being a very significant business that grows for decades steadily.
I really hope that there is more media focus on these kinds of businesses as they are a great alternative to the Venture-funded Unicorn (companies valued over a Billion dollars for those living under a rock) strategy so prevalent in our present cultural discourse.
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