“Founder Mode” suddenly burst onto the scene just last week courtesy of Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator and Brian Chesky, co-founder of Airbnb. It re-awakened in me memories both of my own time as a veteran of two startups in the Dotcom era and of my subsequent interest in “founder populations” in nature. In particular I became interested in how small populations of nonnative plants and animals managed to survive their early days in unfamiliar and often hostile environments to become wildly successful in them even to the point of becoming invasive.

So today I decided to brush off my 2011 principles and practices of invasive species and disruptive innovators in the hope they can add something a little different to the founder mode debate. I’ve kept the piece as short as possible but the original series of articles can be found here with examples from nature and business (admittedly a bit dated by now!).

Invasive Species

Invasive species are most commonly portrayed as destructive pests that threaten native species, ecosystems and economies and that must be controlled and/or eradicated. But viewed from a different perspective, there’s a story of adaptability, persistence, and transformational impact.  Invasive species endure long and hard journeys, fight for survival in hostile and unfamiliar conditions, and succeed in establishing widespread, flourishing populations, beating out their competitors in the process.

They are, in short, the disruptive innovators of the natural world.  And it turns out that many of them have a similar invasion lifecycle.  This paper follows that lifecycle, describing eight characteristics of natural invaders and mapping them to principles for disruptive innovators in the business world.  These include: Start small (Principle #1), adapt rapidly and extensively until proven viable (Principles # 2 through #7), then grow and spread quickly (Principle #8).  Any organization that wishes to innovate for disruptive or transformational impact should employ some or all of these principles to increase their chance of success.

Principle #1: Start small and united

Most invasive species arrive on foreign shores small in numbers and, interestingly, in physical size.  Smallness seems to be an advantage for these potential invaders as it means that they need fewer resources to survive in uncertain circumstances, and that they can stay unobtrusive, less likely to attract the attention of competitors, predators and parasites.

Small founder populations often also have far less genetic variability than the populations from which they came, typically because they all come from one or only a few females.  Variability improves the fitness of a population against disease, but similarity seems to confer two even greater benefits for invaders:  Firstly, the individuals, even plants, recognize each other as kin and are more likely to cooperate for the good of the group as a whole at a time when the group’s survival is not yet assured.  Secondly, a genetic mutation that increases the likelihood of an individual’s success is typically spread across a small population far more rapidly than a large one, making the small population better adapted as a whole.

Principles #2 - #7

Most invasive species experience a lag phase between arriving on foreign shores and growing invasively.  It is during this lag phase that the invasive species, small in numbers and in profile, strive to secure their niche.  They do this by adapting rapidly to the opportunities and challenges presented to them by their new and unfamiliar environment. 

The following principles describe some of their most common methods of adaptation and suggest how founder, or startup, organizations might apply them to their own survival and growth.

Principle #2: Speed up your cycles

Invasive species develop earlier and shorter reproductive cycles that allow them to get to precious energy sources earlier than their native competitors.

Principle #3: Challenge the status quo

As outsiders, invasive species tend to have two major advantages over the natives whose ecosystems they invade.  Firstly, the natives often have no defenses against them or the diseases they carry with them.  This is especially true of island ecosystems like Hawai’i whose isolation once gave it protection.  Secondly, the invasive species have no co-evolved relationships or affinities with any of the native species and thus have no commitment to the status quo.

Principle #4: Pick a ripe location

Invasive species tend to find significant opportunities for success in two quite different types of ecosystem.  As described above in Principle #3, the first is the isolated ecosystem, the type that has not suffered any kind of external shock for so long that its inhabitants have evolved no defense mechanisms against invaders.

The second type of ecosystem is, counter-intuitively, almost the exact opposite to the first, namely the disturbed ecosystem.  This type includes environments that are regularly, or have been recently, flooded, burned, built upon, deforested, polluted or in any other way altered.  Many invasive weeds flourish along road sides and railway lines, river banks, agricultural land and on the edges of forests.  Interestingly, there is some evidence that even native species which behave aggressively in stable conditions may also act invasively when those conditions are disturbed.

Principle #5: Play nicely with other invaders

More often than not, invasive species seem to make conditions in their new environment more hospitable to other potential invaders.  In some cases they do this by removing native predators or competitors. In other cases invaders change the environment itself in ways that are often beneficial to other non-natives.

Principle #6: Hybridize.

There is growing evidence that hybridization between non-natives and native species among animals, plants and microbes can give rise to invasiveness, and that in the majority of cases the hybrid goes on to dominate its native parent.

Principle #7: Exploit under-utilized resources

Invasive weeds often take advantage of under-utilized and overlooked resources.  Native plants typically gravitate towards the most nutrient-rich soils and towards the places with their preferred level of light and water.  In other words they tend to exploit the low-hanging fruit, the resources that are the easiest to get to. 

Would-be invaders are therefore often forced to take advantage of the resources that have been left behind.  If they are successful in doing so they find that they have no competitors, at least for a while, and so can succeed in their new surroundings.

Principle #8: Grow fast, spread fast

Invasive species spread rapidly once they’ve secured their niche. It usually appears as if they’ve appeared from nowhere, as if they’re an overnight success, even if their lag phase has actually lasted for years or even decades.

Their ability to expand quickly is made possible partially because of their adaptations, opportunism and hybridization, but also partially because they are not initially constrained by native counter-adaptations, competitors, predators, parasites and imitators.  Once they’ve established a new, valuable source of resources, however, copycats will follow and start to consume some of those resources.  And so speed is of the essence, to get to those resources before anyone else does.

Summary

The final stage of the invasion lifecycle is naturalization.  Invasive species aren’t invasive in the same place for ever.  Sooner or later they attract predators, competitors, parasites, disease vectors, and imitators, and the surviving native species develop counter-adaptations.  In addition they often grow to a point where they over-consume resources and this combination of factors leads to a rapid reduction in population size and an accompanying reduction in impact.  Eventually, they find a dynamic equilibrium within the ecosystem and become an established part of it.

Founders should use the invasion principles not just once but systematically and in combinations.  Search out under-utilized resources, not just those in the ecosystem but also those within your own organization.  Explore business model hybrids.  Challenge orthodoxies within your organization and industry.

Finally, don’t assume that what’s worked before will work again.  It is true that the number one predictor of invasive potential for any given species is previous invasion success.  But what’s important is not any specific adaptation that a species has made before but rather its ongoing willingness and capacity to adapt.

If you’d like to learn more, please feel free to read my blog posts on the topic, including my pre-IPO assessment of Tesla’s chances of success or connect with me on LinkedIn. Thank you for reading.