Panjiva, Importgenius, PIERS, Zepol keep chugging along, selling their wares. Here is the problem... people have a belief that knowing the buyers and the sellers is a path toward success in starting up a business. In every single instance of approaching business this way, the effort ends in failure. 80% of new businesses fail within 5 years, and this idea of finding the names of buyers and sellers somehow being of use is a common reason why they fail. People pursuing known business, hoping for a cut of that, never ask the question their target will ask "why should I buy from you?' (Or if they ask the question, they ask it only of themselves, and answer it to themselves positively.)
The ineluctable reason why this fails is new businesses must find new customers. As Drucker says entrepreneurs create customers. Bastiat talks about the seen and the unseen. Catholic professions of faith talk of the seen and unseen. Jesus gave higher marks for those who believed without seeing. What else can I say to emphasize this? Me, Jesus, Drucker, Bastiat... just who else can I bring up as a witness? Entrepreneurs go after the unseen. Any start-up effort or time spent on the see-able in regards to customers or suppliers is a degenerate waste. We search and learn. Yet, there are companies, several, making millions at selling sheer fantasy of "buyers and seller" to people trained to fail.
Government can subsidize only what is seen, and that is why all government programs go no where. (In research, researchers often cheat on the parameters in order to accomplish any goals.) Government can only "sell" the seen.
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3 comments:
My train of thought in using these types of companies is that it's just another way to get to 'who' are the best suppliers in the best countries.
After I look at the NTDB trade data and know where my supplier should be, I can find out all I need to know from places like Panjiva and Import Genius through their search engines, without paying a monthly subscription fee.
If I want to make a glass measuring cup, I can find out where the best companies are getting theirs and which oversees companies ship the most of these out. If I want to know more about the suppliers in the list, I can usually Google their name and find a website for them.
I see it as just another way to sift through the enormous number of suppliers out there and come up with a list of those I would like to contact.
Holly
Hey Holly,
The challenge is the unseen. You see the result of another companies decision based on their interaction with their market. If you were to follow the organic method I lay out in finding suppliers, you are most likely to come up with a different supplier, which better matches you are your customers. If so, all effort expended as you detail would have been wasted. I say go for the best.
JOhn
Destined for success or failure?
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/biotech/2013/09/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-walgreens.html?page=all
"The company's culture is such that confidentiality is the essence of its existence."
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