An interesting perspective building a business that lasts. Roughly 1/3 of new businesses don’t make the 5-year mark. Find out how you might avoid that and make your business last 100 years.

Moxwai has been around since 2009 and it is nice to see some of the stuff that kinda felt right to do, showing up in someone’s TED talk!

You can watch the video above or click here to access the video from TED:

https://www.ted.com/talks/martin_reeves_how_to_build_a_business_that_lasts_100_years

Summary: Building a Business That Lasts

If you don’t have time to watch the video above then here is the guts of it. Success in business can be related to the human immune system. The critical success factors found in the immune system and  most businesses that have lasted 100 years or more are:

  1. Redundancy
  2. Diversity
  3. Modularity
  4. Adaptation
  5. Prudence
  6. Embeddedness

One example given in the TED talk was two competing film companies, Kodak and Fuji Film. Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012 while Fuji is still going great guns. This is mainly related to Fuji’s ability to diversify during one of the tougher periods for both companies, which was the invention of the digital camera.

The video also puts emphasis on trying and failing. Not everything is going to work, but you have to be willing to adapt the knowledge from that experience and keep pushing.

Redundancy is also a key factor in business longevity and I’ve often thought how nice it would be to have a redundant bank account with a million dollars in it! I think though, they are talking about systems redundancy. While having employees can sometimes add stress or complexity to your business, it also provides redundancy of cash flow. In the event that you aren’t at work for whatever reason, there will still be someone there working, making money, dealing with customers that could be going elsewhere. Having started out in business with one of my best buddies, I would certainly recommend it. Having that backup, support and someone to bounce ideas off has been invaluable.

There is plenty of other useful information in the video if you are interested in building a business that lasts. I highly recommend watching the whole thing!

Thanks to @MartinKReeves and @TEDtalks for this insight. Check out Martin’s book here: