The rise of digital infrastructure has made it easier than ever to launch a business, with statistics showing a more than 30 percent increase in new business applications over the past five years. But the digital tools today’s founders have at their disposal don’t appear to have made it any easier to succeed, as failure rates for new businesses have also been increasing over the past several years.
The problem, some experts believe, is that digital tools are empowering entrepreneurs to dive into the market before they’ve developed a viable business plan. A lower barrier to entry means players are getting into the game without having the skills it takes to compete.
“We’ve romanticized accessibility to the point of self-destruction,” says Jared Navarre, Founder of Keyni Consulting. “Founders today are handed tools of scale without the scaffolding of discernment.”
Navarre is a creative strategist and multidisciplinary founder who has a long record of successfully launching, scaling, and exiting ventures in the logistics, entertainment, service, and IT industries. As a consultant, he has helped over 250 businesses design resilient technology infrastructures and develop multi-platform brand ecosystems that resonate with both niche and mainstream audiences. Navarre is also the creator of ZILLION, which blends narrative, multimedia, and live performance to give audiences an immersive music experience.
As an active player in the music industry, Navarre has had a front row seat for the rise of digitalization. He feels that creating a marketplace where any artist or entrepreneur could upload a track overnight opened the floodgates to noise, rather than talent. Music lost its soul, he says, when it became as endless and effortless as scrolling.
“The American Dream, once aspirational, has curdled into delusion and entitlement,” Navarre laments. “The infrastructure-driven landscape whispers, ‘If you bake great cookies, the world owes you a bakery.’ But business isn’t a hobby with a storefront. It’s a profession that demands skill, study, and sacrifice. We’ve glamorized the dream and disrespected the discipline.”
Building businesses that are valuable, not just possible
To build a business that lasts, founders must keep their focus on business fundamentals. Digital tools can streamline key operational processes, but they can’t make something out of nothing.
“Digital infrastructure has become a kind of performance-enhancing drug for mediocre ideas,” Navarre warns. “Cloud native, data-rich, auto-scaling platforms can now take a half-baked, dumb idea and blow it up into a global business, all before the founder works out a sensible moral compass or basic P&L strategy. Founders were once forced to wrestle with constraints, gatekeepers, and the friction required to bring something to market. Now, they’re mainlining leverage and scale before they’ve earned the right to wield it.”
Before founders leverage digital tools to get products and services in front of customers, they must invest in understanding those customers, their needs, and their pain points. Founders need to develop the ability to clearly articulate why consumers will choose their product before they unleash digital campaigns to promote it. All of the fundamentals, from product-market fit to customer-centricity to a compelling value proposition, must still be addressed, regardless of how far-reaching or easily accessible digital tools have become.
“Everyone wants to go global in Q1, somehow forgetting that the world doesn’t owe you relevance,” Navarre says. “Digital infrastructure might let you launch worldwide, but without culture, iron-clad systems, a genuinely good idea or product, multilingual support, regulatory awareness, team cohesion across time zones, and logistics that don’t crumble, you’re just noise at scale.”
Building businesses that aren’t limited by operational technology
According to Navarre, founders also must understand that tying their dream to digital infrastructure means giving technology a majority stake. If those developing the digital tools choose a new direction, founders may find themselves along for the ride.
The shift to cloud native technology, which is central to today’s digital infrastructure, provides a great example of the threat posed by today’s operational technology (OT). Cloud tools can significantly streamline the scaling process for new businesses, but could also lock those businesses into a course that doesn’t serve their best interests.
“OT tools like cloud native storage and apps once meant flexible and fast,” Navarre says. “Now they mean you don’t actually own anything. You’re renting your business from a stack of vendors who can change the rules of engagement at any moment. It’s powerful, but don’t confuse agility with autonomy. And never confuse access with ownership.”
Gaining digital agility while maintaining autonomy is a tightrope walk for today’s businesses that typically requires them to embrace multi-cloud strategies and focus on data portability. Those who can master it will have the advantage of being able to continue to pursue the solutions that serve them best.
The overarching aim for founders who want to benefit from digital infrastructure should be crafting a business they can believe in. If they are banking solely on digital capabilities to drive success but are unwilling to contribute blood, sweat, and tears, they’ll most likely be profoundly disappointed.
“Too many chase the storefront without ever learning how to survive inside it,” Navarre warns. “When everyone is building, nothing feels built to last. And in a market where everything is possible and failures are ever more rampant, belief becomes rare.”
