PHOTOS

: Technology and the business climate have re-defined the rules for successful entrepreneurship. In his book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Eat-People-Unapologetic-Game-Changing-Entrepreneurs/dp/1591843774/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1296661549&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Eat People: and Other Unapologetic Rules for Game-Changing Entrepreneurs</a> <a href="http://www.andykessler.com/" target="_blank">Andy Kessler</a> takes a look at 12 of those new rules. Co-founder and president of Velocity Capital Management, an investment firm based that provided funding for private and public technology and communications companies, Kessler provided BLACK ENTERPRISE with four rules for not just profitability–but also how to identify the next big trend.–Alan Hughes (Images: Thinkstock)

: If it doesn’t scale, it will get stale. Kessler defines scale is something that you can invent once and then sell a million different times. “Pick a profession like lawyers or doctors who start a practice and they have their clients but they’re dealing with them one-by-one and compare that to Intel that develops a microprocessor for PCs or someone who is writing software for those platforms,” he says. “They write it once and they sell it millions of times.”

: Harness your intelligence network: Just as computer networks have evolved from a centralized mainframe connected to scores of dumb terminals to powerful computers connected to one or many networks, business ventures need to evolve as well. “In business, this means we’re not stuck with centralized thinking and the individuals on the edge (those involved in the use or deployment of that product or service) have a lot more say of what goes on in the system,” asserts Kessler. “When you’re deciding what to invest in or what startup to launch, if it doesn’t take advantage of that intelligence on the edge, my advice is to do something else. Gone are the days of the establishment deciding what the rest of us are going to do rather than those in charge having to listen to those out on the edge.”

: Eat people: This may sound controversial or mercenary, but the fact is most technology that gets invented puts someone out of work. Kessler says tech is also the greatest mechanism to generate progress for society and creates a productive economy. “In the last 15 years we had a whole slew of the service economy taken out – think about bank tellers who were replaced by ATMs or travel agents by online booking,” he says. “The good news is we always create more and better jobs of those that are providing the tools to do those things that those jobs did unproductively. If you’re an entrepreneur find an opportunity where you can get rid of jobs.”

: Create a virtual pipeline: This is the connection between customers and the service offered that a business controls. For example, a media company owns the platform–whether television frequencies, an Internet site or pages in a magazine and rents that space out via advertising. Kessler suggests creating a business model around a direct connection to your customers and control it. A good example of this is <a href="http://www.apple.com/itunes/" target="_blank">Apple’s iTunes</a>. “There’s zero cost to sell one more digital songs. Successful companies like <a href="http://www.facebook.com/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> have created and controlled these virtual pipes.”

: Stay relevant: The overriding message, according to Kessler is if you’re an entrepreneur, make sure you’re not in some business that someone else can eat, but also there’s great opportunities in identifying jobs that can be made obsolete and you should be the one doing the “obsoleting,” not the one being made obsolete. “If you do that, you will increase the productivity of the workforce and the economy and the only way you can create wealth is through productivity,” he says