Prospectors, Craftspeople, and Merchants

Every value chain involves, broadly, three archetypes.

The prospectors (or explorers) driven to discover, or create, something new. Something that the world needs, or that is in short supply. Over time; spices, precious stones, gold, oil, money, mass production techniques, the internet. Prospectors bring these into being though passion, commitment, love. In their first iterations they are often quite crude, but start a landslide.

The craftspeople who take these first iterations and develop them through experimentation, collaboration, initial offerings. They get a sense of the potential of the idea, product or material and refine them. they are artists, and have the same endless drive for perfection.

The merchants understand where the needs are, and act as the bridge between the concept of the craftspeople and the demand in the market. As demand develops, they find others who can produce facsimiles of the craftspeople's art in order to meet volume demand, and increase margins. In the end,…