How to create a better world using startup strategies

Since the attack on the World Trade Center and the 2008 financial crisis dramatically indicated the end of the 20th century, most people feel like the world they knew is falling apart. Global warming, never ending wars in conflict zones, terrorists using social media, the threat of unemployment in the robotics age and growing income inequality all suggest that we have a good reason to feel depressed.

But at the same time, a great chance has emerged to create a sustainable, happier future for more humans on Earth. This chance is brought to us by the redefinition of all the basic rules in the science of economics. But how do startups come into this picture? What is the connection between a few guys around a laptop trying to be the next big thing and the future of the planet?

The answer is in the evolutionary approach to economics. According to a growing number of scientists, the global economy is not a market that creates equilibrium between offer and demand by prices, but a complex system where "agents" (from private entrepreneurs to international corporations) try to find better and better solutions to people's problems always adapting their strategies to the environment.

I have just read a great essay by Nick Hanauer and Eric Beinhocker (author of the game changing book The Origin of Wealth) that sums up the evolutionary theory and its possible economic and social consequences. And I think the business strategy used by successful startups provides another piece of proof that this theory actually works in reality.

One of the well-known phrases in the startup world is the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). This is something like a prototype, or even less, maybe only a landing page with a short explanation where people can sign up if they think the product will solve one of their problems. MVPs can work because of the digital revolution. Before the internet, a small company needed to invest a lot of time and money to build a growing business and see if there is actual mass demand for the product they offer. Nowadays, depending on the sector of course, you can put together a website and a social media campaign to test your offer in a week. After checking the analytics, you can start building the actual product, launch it and see how people react. On the net, every click of every person can be tracked, so you will much faster have a much better understanding of what exactly people need. Based on that knowledge, you iterate the product and start the circle again.

In other words, the threshold to step onto the market is considerably lower today than a few decades ago. And this is exactly what can boost a more dynamic evolutionary process in the economy. As more new companies can enter the market, there are more chances of finding a good solution for a problem. Finding solutions faster means more happiness and prosperity for people, whether you talk about something as important as the search for the drugs curing cancer or something as simple as a new craft beer with great taste.

So, in my view, the Minimum Viable Product economy has created a good base of solving a lot of the problems humans will face in the 21st century. The next step has to be taken by politicians. They should steer their cities, regions and countries towards the creation of an "MVP-friendly" environment.

In order to have more new solutions in the market, people need a few things that only governments can organize effectively and fairly through the redistribution of wealth. The top 1% should be taxed (more seriously) to provide better education, more affordable healthcare and resources for R&D. As the book The Darwin Economy argues, the super rich will actually be better off at the end of the day if they pay more taxes due to the growth of the economic pie.

Let's hope politicians and other decision makers will realize that instead of believing in the omnipotent power of the Invisible Hand (let money decide everything) it's crucial to push resources into the middle class and also create more opportunities for the poor to break out of their prison of social immobility, because a bigger diversity of agents is the only way to increase the number of different MVPs in the global market and solve more of the smaller and bigger problems people have on Earth.