The power of templates

Henry Ford built a template for mass manufactured vehicles.

Bill Gates & Steve Jobs built templates to enable computer usage in the home. (They also stole some ideas)

Netscape built a template to enable people to browse the web.

McDonalds built a franchise template.

Ebay built a template for selling and on line auctions.

Write a book once, sell it for years. Record an album once, sell it over and over. The same holds true for movies and all paid software. The production line also exemplifies this. Pretty much every successful business we see – has built a template that works. And often it takes a long time to work out what that template should be. Which is why we usually run out of time before we run out of money.

What we need is a replicable formula: Something that can be built, designed, made, or bought once, but sold over and over again. It’s all about efficiency and the multiplier effect. Some of the oldest business models in the world follow this maxim. Think about real estate. You buy an investment property once, and you sell it over and over again, every month as ‘rent’. Efficiency is not necessarily evil. More importantly, this is also the component of your business model that helps it grow beyond the founder. If our business can’t survive and grow without us, the truth is, we haven’t really got one.

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