Editor’s note: This article was first published in November 2010; it presents social networks as still starting out, Google TV as a new invention and Google’s driverless car as a coming revolution, with company figures from 2010. Google dropped the Google TV brand in 2014, and the driverless car project became Waymo in 2016.
Looking back at the most innovative businesses of the last decade, I hadn’t planned to mention the social networking business, and certainly not Google, since we have all witnessed how new technologies have changed us.
Even so, outside the technology era, entrepreneurs have emerged with innovative ideas that have allowed them to build large companies.
1. Social networks: Not only have they become lucrative businesses, they have also been responsible for changing the way we do business and communicate. The best thing about the social networking business is that it is still just starting and has a long way to go.
What’s more, new social networks for specific sectors appear every day, some of them very exclusive, where you have to pay a monthly or annual fee if you want to join. This means that, today, anyone can do business within social networks.
2. Google: I mention Google not as a search engine but as a major developer of new technology. If a few years ago it changed the way we search the internet, today it is going to change much more than that with its two new inventions.
- Google TV: The union of the internet and television, an alliance that will end up creating a new way of experiencing the internet.
- The Google car: The car of the future, from the internet giant. A car that drives itself without any human handling (no driver). Any doubt that this vehicle will revolutionise the market?
3. Virtual real estate: I would have taken this business idea, which several entrepreneurs came up with, as a joke if it weren’t for the fact that it moves billions today. The business basically consists of buying a virtual plot of land or property (one that doesn’t exist), renovating or building on it, and then selling it to another buyer. It is the era of online speculation. You can read more about it in our article on virtual real estate.
4. Buddi: Our concern for our own safety and that of our children, turned into a business. Technology developed by a woman entrepreneur makes it possible to know where our child is in real time, setting limits on the areas the child can go and alerting us if they go beyond them. Ideal in kidnapping cases. That is what Buddi does, a company that currently turns over more than $5 million.
5. Divorce insurance: Love isn’t everything, and the customers who turn to Safeguardguaranty.com know it. It is a company that advises you and insures you in case you think your marriage might not turn out too well. So, for the less romantic, there is a company that will cover the costs of your divorce (which are not small). You will agree that it is a very original and innovative business.
6. Coworking: Although the practice was already known, some companies have managed to make it profitable in the middle of the crisis, because companies need to share costs with other companies so as not to lose profitability. Click here to learn more about coworking.
7. We pay you to shop: As the name says, innovation has gone as far as creating a website that pays its users for the purchases they normally make, with no catch. The “we pay you to shop” website
8. Boticca.com: The online jewellery and costume jewellery business, at good prices and with excellent service. In the first week after it opened online, Boticca broke sales records. They managed to create a simple website where you can buy in three clicks. They have also got internationally known artists to lend it their image.
9–10. Personal services: Places 9 and 10 go to personal shopper and personal trainer businesses. Although they can’t be considered innovative businesses in the United States, we have to recognise that the companies that have managed to introduce them in some Spanish-speaking countries deserve a lot of credit. They have certainly paved the way for this business of personal advice on all kinds of subjects to be not a luxury service but just another service that anyone can use.
What about you? Which do you think is the most innovative business of the last decade?
Note: this ranking is my own.
Featured image: Grendelkhan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
