The 3 tests of the perfect web business

The perfect web business

So you’ve got a twitter and facebook page that directs people to your website. Great!

That means you’re running a web business, right?

Well, just before you get too comfortable, here are 3 questions to ask yourself…

Never assume

You may have heard the story of how an elephant is trained for life in the circus. As a baby elephant, their tail is tied to a peg from which they cannot break free. Years later, when they become fully grown and could easily pull the tent peg away, they simply cannot – because their years of growing up have trained them into *assuming* they can’t.

Even though they live in a completely new paradigm as an adult elephant, they never questioned the assumptions of the old paradigm.

The result is that this false assumption limits the adult elephant’s freedom.

Check your tail

We now live in a completely new, information age (paradigm).

Assumptions that were true for the previous industrial age no longer apply.

Unless you *assume* they do.

Here are 3 tests you can ask of your business to check whether you are running an information age web business – or a business unwittingly limited by industrial age assumptions.

1) The test of scalability

In an industrial age, scalability was directly proportional to available finance. If you could afford more people and materials, you could scale up production. The more widgets you produced, the cheaper each widget became.

In an information age, scalability is disproportionate to finance. It doesn’t cost any more to produce multiple copies of information.

In an information age, scalability is infinite.

Question: Is the scalability of your product intentionally infinite?

2) The test of reach + distribution

In an industrial age, the reach of your market was determined by the economics of distributing your product. It simply costs more to post/courier/ship your product further away. Higher postage costs make your product more expensive than your competitors thus limiting the practical reach of your brand.

In an information age, distribution of digital products is free. It doesn’t cost any more to distribute blog posts, PDFs, MP3s or Youtubes sites across the world, or across the street.

In an information age, reach and distribution is global.

Question: Is the reach and distribution of your product intentionally global?

3) The test of asynchronous income

In an industrial age, income is directly proportional to hours worked. If you’re an employee and work a 40 hour week, then you are paid for 40 hours at the rate you’re worth. If you own the company, the income you can receive from the sale of your products is directly proportional (limited) to the number of hours your staff have worked to produce your products.

In an information age, products can be sold from a website 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Whether you are working or not.

In an information age, income earned is asynchronous (disconnected) from the hours worked.

Question: Is your income intentionally asynchronous from your hours worked?

Conclusion

The real test of whether you are running an information age web business or an industrial business with a website comes down to your ability to answer ‘Yes’ to the following three questions:

1) Is the scalability of your product intentionally infinite?

2) Is the reach and distribution of your product intentionally global?

3) Is your income intentionally asynchronous from your hours worked?

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