Darwin as Business Strategist

Evolution and Business Strategy... The Same Process

I spent 22 years as a micro-paleontologist analyzing the relationship of individual species with other species and the physical environment they existed in. And as such, making a switch to the dramatically different world of entrepreneurialism and entrepreneurial finance was a daunting task, especially at my advanced age (52). But need dictated I roll up my sleeves and take the plunge. 

During the next 12 months at Northeastern University in Boston, while pursuing a MS degree in Technology Commercialization, I was stunned to discover that the entrepreneurial process was exactly the same science as evolutionary biology. Every product ever developed is part of an ecosystem developed by humans over millennia within an ecosystem developed over eons. 

And here’s where it gets so very interesting, for me anyway. This vast chain of interconnected parts provides opportunity for the development of visualization tools that can align a product with the business environment which includes forces not always obvious, exactly what I did as a paleontologist. 

My 22 years weren’t a loss. Entrepreneurial business analysis and strategy consulting were an natural progression for me. My business partner, Darwin and I see products as individual species. By analyzing the business environment, need, founders abilities and goals, market size, marketing channels, distribution channels, suppliers and competition, and other forces as a unit, products can be viewed as pre-adapted to survive, others requiring adaptation to survive and some identified as not likely to survive under any circumstance.


I am, however, at a loss to explain all the Neanderthals in key positions around the world.