Businesses Competing in the Wild

Organisms that are colonizing a rather empty habitat exhibit high rates of reproduction, smaller offspring size, high mortality rates and very little competition over available resources. Contrastingly, organisms living in a rather crowded habitat exhibit high competition, lower reproduction rates, larger offspring size, delayed reproduction and lower mortality rates excluding that caused by competition.

Businesses show similar patterns in the economy. A business that is 'colonizing' a new virgin market can rapidly dominate it 'reproducing' its product or services all over that fresh market. Its products do not have to be top quality, but they must be large in numbers. In contrast, a business attempting to survive in a highly competitive market needs to provide much higher quality products or services that are fewer in number in order to be able to withstand the fierce competition.

Why Having Twins is Rare in Humans?

How many rabbits does a rabbit give birth in one time? How many kittens does a cat give birth too in one time? The number of offspring in each birth for an organism cannot be too high or else it will consume so much energy from the mother and will also adversely affect the health and fitness of the offspring on the long term. The number of offspring in many organisms also is not too low, so that the organism can have enough offspring to propagate and expand. This is true in the animal kingdom and also in the plant kingdom when plants produce seeds for instance. Attempting to artificially increase the number of offspring per birth in animals or in plants may lead to adverse effects on the long term on the offspring or on the short term on the mother.

It would be interesting to explore how this pattern applies to humans when they produce twins, a single baby or not at all. In some cases humans may produce 3, 4, 5, 6 and up to 8 offspring at once! This would be interesting to examine in light of the above mentioned pattern.

Startup Business Size and Predators

Organisms focus on producing offspring that are larger in size, yet fewer in number, in  habitats where there are high risks of predators on the offspring and also where there is high competition among the same organism for available resources in such habitat. In contrast, organisms living in habitats that lack predators, or lack a high risk of predation, and do not have high competition produce a larger number of offspring that are smaller in size.

By the same token, businesses that are created in a highly competitive market must be born large in size or else they will not be able to survive. A business that is born in a marketplace where there are a lot of 'predators' would not stand a chance of surviving either. In contrast, in a low-competition market, a business that is born small might still be able to survive and flourish.