Disruptive forces in history make impact that is long-lasting and change the status quo.

We as humans walked and ran for majority of our history. Then, the invention of wheels disrupted our lifestyle and allowed us to be much more mobile. The Mongols disrupted the world by using horses in warfare. The US became a connected nation through the disruptive force of rail roads.

In modern commercial context, everyone now understands how disruptive the iPhone has been to the mobile industry. It changed the positioning of mobile carriers upside down. Another obvious example is the internet. The world wide web, which started as a place to put your company brochure on a web site, has changed how retail, customer support, and almost every aspect of businesses are run. That’s disruption.

In business, we constantly look for those disruptions. They represent opportunities for innovative, smaller companies to take market share. For forward-thinking entrepreneurs, these times are fertile ground to create something big. Too often entrepreneurs look for opportunities just to fill the void within the inefficiencies of large, bureaucratic organizations. Building a company during a disruptive period in any industry provides greater, richer opportunities.

Intrepid is building a company within the social media space, which is a disruptive force in of itself. Right now, I see great opportunities to apply social media data into the rigor of academic market research. Others obviously understand this as well. Forrester just came out with a report on integrating social media to research. The disruption in this space is being validated.

As a person interested in company building, such opportunity is all you can ask for. Now, we just need to out-execute competitors who see the same opportunity. That, my friends, is the game that makes everyday so much fun.