![\"DB](\"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/DB-Concordia2-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>entrepreneur in the year 2000 to create a product to permit those without credit cards to purchase items on the Internet. Think of it: to shop on the web, you must have a card, not a nine digit routing and bank account number. The young, inexperienced entrepreneur had two assets that attracted me \u2013 rights to use the MasterCard name on this new product, and a laser focus to make this work in any form possible.<\/p>\n[Email readers, continue here…]<\/span><\/em>\u00a0 Over the years, that vision changed dramatically several times as the world\u2019s first debit cards were invented by the firm, positioning the card to be used by the un-bankable, those unable to obtain credit cards or in some cases even checking accounts. The firm grew to dominate its new field, create an infrastructure to allow any of its 70,000 retail stores to simple activate or load the card with money from any cash register. It replaced Western Union as the preferred way to send money across great distances. And it built a billion dollar market and then some – where it might have been restricted to a small percentage of that.<\/p>\nAnd we who held early stock celebrated together the ringing of the NYSE opening bell the day that often pivoting company went public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Plans don\u2019t often work as devised. We are not always smart about the market or the product. Great teams are not bound by their original product or marketing plan. Greatness finds one definition in management\u2019s ability to \u201cpivot,\u201d or change … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finding-your-ideal-niche","category-positioning"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"DB](\"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/DB-Concordia2.jpg\")
<\/a>entrepreneur in the year 2000 to create a product to permit those without credit cards to purchase items on the Internet. Think of it: to shop on the web, you must have a card, not a nine digit routing and bank account number. The young, inexperienced entrepreneur had two assets that attracted me \u2013 rights to use the MasterCard name on this new product, and a laser focus to make this work in any form possible.<\/p>\n