Trends: Instapreneur

Wired Magazine has a great article this month on business trends and a fascinating look at instapreneurs. This is a trend to watch, and participate in. The process seems simple: a designer uploads their design to a website such as ponoko, zazzle, or styleshake, and let buyers order the product. An outsourced firm manufactures the product with short lead time (like two weeks) and profits go to the designer.

Is this the beginning of the end of mass production? The long tail of the Internet demand curve allows buyers to specify exactly what they want, in nearly infinite variety, so a nearly infinite variety of products can be produced. Henry Ford invented mass production with the first assembly line... and the Internet is dismantling it in favor of lean, demand-driven operations exploiting information on what the customer wants, supplanting producer-driven marketing on what the producer makes.

Mass production will live on indefinitely, supporting commodity products such as raw materials. However, the future belongs to those who adapt; manufacturers must remember, the information economy doesn't stop at the factory door.