I really think that this blog post is a must read for any business owner out there. I was introduced to this concept a while back and it has been continually brewing in my mind. It’s totally changed my outlook on my own businesses and how other businesses operate.
The big idea: It seems that businesses nowadays are selling “time” rather than anything else. No matter what industry, it seems that what companies are actually doing is selling “time”.
This sounded really weird to me at first, but now it’s actually painfully obvious.
We may think that Uber sells taxi rides. But what it really sells is time. Before I’ve gotten off of a train ride, I’ve already called an Uber. It’s selling me time. Time that I would have wasted waiting around for a taxi if it wasn’t for Uber.
What does Amazon sell? Retail goods? Actually it sells time. It takes me a second to order a product and get it delivered the next day.
Does JustEat or GrubHub sell food? Or does it sell time and convenience.
What about Instacart?
It’s a really interesting way of looking at things and has implications for my own health tech startup. Yes, I am automating a load of medical work, but actually when I think about it, I’m selling doctors and patients their time back to them.
One of the things that I’ve been thinking about recently is why this is such a big deal.
I think it’s a big deal because technology has allowed us to tap into a whole market place that didn’t even exist just a decade ago: the market place of time. And back of the envelope maths says that this new market place is worth trillions of pounds.
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