The Mesh - Lisa Gansky [11]
Both the Full Mesh and Own-to-Mesh models are most successful when the customer feels empowered by relinquishing or sharing ownership. Mesh businesses are well positioned to constantly improve their customers’ convenience by refining the overall experience, while offering them long-term savings and near-term happy surprises. Those ingredients will make sharing irresistible—customers will choose access to superior goods and services over living with lots of stuff. Not so long ago, stuff was all the rage. But what’s so fabulous about piles of poorly built possessions, hardly used or maintained, and hard to find when you need them? (Which sort of describes my garage.)
profit? show me.
Market leaders view Mesh businesses as expanding and engaging new models for bringing services or products to market. Hundreds of millions of dollars in venture funding have already flowed into the Mesh. Thriving Mesh companies like Zopa, Prosper, Lending Club, Zipcar, Kickstarter, thredUP, SmartyPig, Etsy, Instructables, and smava were all funded by well-respected, big-name venture funds.
Early in my research, I talked with Chris Larsen of Prosper and Giles Andrews of Zopa, leading peer-to-peer lenders. I spoke with Lucy Shea of U.K.-based Futerra, creators of Swishing and founders of the fashion exchange concept; Robin Chase, cofounder of Zipcar; Shelby Clark, founder of RelayRides; Sunil Paul, creator of Spride Share services; Perry Chen, the founder of Kickstarter, a community of artists and funders; James Reinhart of thredUP; Derek Sivers, inventor of MuckWork, hosted services for musicians; and Jia En, cofounder of Roomorama. I got a sense of what drives these entrepreneurs and the sort of trends they’re seeing in their businesses, from customers, partners, and investors. I also spoke to senior executives from large corporations such as GE, Target, HP, Best Buy, Flextronics, and Nissan. They, too, are seeking the ability to respond to markets more quickly, with thoughtfully designed products and services that enable access. In some cases, these industry behemoths have radically shifted ways of addressing partners and customers. Others are actively developing more efficient systems for sharing materials and natural resources. Mesh businesses are attracting attention, gaining momentum, and drawing competitors—blending all the ingredients for a frothy new platform. It’s big, growing, and timely.
whoa! what’s driving this thing?
The Mesh arrives just in time. Powerful forces drive it. From a business standpoint, we have already mentioned how the rapid growth of mobile and social networks energizes the Mesh model. These allow for more efficient and more personalized access to products and services. But there are also four global trends that favor the Mesh, all of which will be discussed at greater length in chapter 3.
First, the economic crisis has created a deep distrust of older brands and models. Historically, such times favor the emergence of new companies and the remaking of old ones. And indeed, there’s considerable evidence that consumer attitudes are changing in response to the crisis, including a willingness to try new brands. Second, in the wake of the crisis, consumers are rethinking what they consider valuable in their lives. This is an opening to new models for delivering products and services that offer more value at less cost.
Population and resource pressures also drive the Mesh. Climate change and depleted natural resources are rapidly increasing the cost and risk of doing business the old way. The global population will expand to 9 billion people by mid-century, just as critical resources, including land, potable water, and oil, are shrinking. Simple math suggests that in order to have a peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable world, we are going to have to do a more efficient job of sharing the resources we have. Pragmatic and visionary businesspeople and governments