From the Washington Post The future of new business is disrupting old business by Barry Ritholtz

excerpts:

There are many lessons to be learned from Uber, the taxi- ­ and car-hailing start-up that came out of nowhere and is valued at $41 billion. Less than three years ago, Uber had zero drivers. Now it has more than 160,000 active drivers who have collected $656.8 million in fares (net of what they pay Uber).

Among the lessons, some point to the rise of the sharing economy, which also includes firms such as Airbnb, Snapgoods, RelayRides, TaskRabbit and Lending Club. Others talk about the “on-demand economy,” which creates a new class of labor that straddles the line between being self-employment and working for a firm.

I prefer a Big Picture view to get the proper perspective on these start-ups. From 30,000 feet, we see what all of these newcomers have in common: They attack an existing market dominated by entrenched incumbents that are inefficient, expensive or both.

What other industries are ripe for disruption? All of the following have some form of restriction which limits supply and reduces competition, thereby keeping prices high even when providing poor service.

Credit transactions: How is it that every time a consumer uses a credit card, the retailer pays a 3 percent (or more) transaction fee to credit-card companies? Most of the new transaction processors — whether it’s Apple Pay, Square or PayPal — still process the back end through the major credit-card firms. This area is long overdue for a new competitor that will be cheaper to the retailer (and, therefore, to the consumer) and more convenient to the shopper.

 Mortgages: The way we finance homes in this country is slow, filled with middlemen, who run a nonstandardized evaluation process. This makes financing a home cumbersome and difficult. Whoever figures out how to replace this inefficient process stands to make a fortune in residential real estate. The same is true for commercial loans.

read the article fro the rest  of the list.

print