On the other hand, take Uber. The founders started with a customer problem—a problem they experienced in their daily lives—then applied technology. The problem was simple: finding a cab in Paris was next to impossible and hiring private drivers was expensive and took forever. In the days before smartphones, the solution might have been to simply start a new kind of taxi or limo business. But the company’s timing was perfect—the sudden ubiquity of smartphones provided Uber with a platform and put customers into the right mindset to accept their solution. If I can order a toaster with an app on
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