This
is a concrete story. And, it is a tale of innovation.
Last
week I mentioned that I am going for a full-out assault against the
myth of the great idea. A lot of people think entrepreneurship is
dependent upon having great ideas for products and services. I will
be giving you concrete examples to debunk this unfortunate myth.
How
much do you know about concrete? Me, I do not know very much. But,
what I learned is, concrete and cement are the third leading
producers, of CO2 gas, in the entire world.
Obviously,
this means concrete and cement are massive contributors to global
warming. This is a very real problem. And, as you know by now,
entrepreneurs use innovation to solve problems.
Problems
are opportunities. The thing is when people think of innovation they
tend to think about new products and services. And they miss enormous
categories of opportunity.
While
it is true that you can start a business around a new product or
service, it is also true that you can innovate around various
processes. Let me give you an example.
There
exists a company, in the country of Latvia, called Primekss.
Primekss was founded, in 1997, on a very simple premise. The premise
was to create a more environmentally friendly form of concrete.
In
order to do this, the folks at Primekss first looked to history. What
they found was that it was the Egyptians who first developed
concrete. One of the things the Egyptians (and later the Romans) did
was add blood and horse hair to their concrete.
This
caused the Primekss people to think about re-engineering the process
of creating concrete. The result was their product that made come to
be known as PrimeComposite.
PrimeComposite
reduces the emission of CO2 by 30-50% (depending on who you ask.)
What's more, builders end up using less PrimeComposite than they had
traditional concrete. And, PrimeComposite is less likely to crack
than old school concrete.
Now,
I do not know about you, but, for me, concrete is about the least
sexy product in the world. In fact, on Primekss's website, they brag
about being boring.
You
see, it is okay to not be sexy. Because, properly understood,
entrepreneurship is not appeal sex appeal. It is about making the
world a better place. Entrepreneurship is about solving real
problems. And, the bigger the problem, the bigger the payoff.
As
I stated at the start of this post, entrepreneurship is not about
great ideas. Entrepreneurship is about problems, solving problems.
Problems
come in many shapes and sizes. In the case of concrete, the solution
was to redesign the creation process. Not a great, earth-shattering
idea. But, a valuable idea nonetheless.
