Via Business Insider: We often assume that today’s most profitable businesses must be digital. But Kjell Nordström, the co-author of global bestseller Funky Business (2007), begs to disagree. His advice to entrepeneurs is to look at what might seem boring, non-digital industries. “The rule of thumb is easy: if it cannot be digitized it will create value and become profitable", Nordström said at the Nordic Busines Forum in Helsinki last week, at Business Insider Nordic's live studio. Nordström gave some examples from the music industry, where many famous artists are touring to make money (as opposed to selling their records online). “Look at the Madonna’s, the Justin Bieber’s, the Rolling Stones – what are they doing? They are on tour", he said, adding: "Look at the spa business, which sells experiences. They are very profitable”. To avoid fierce competition and have a better chance at creating value, Nordström says, one needs to look for the inefficient markets, the non-digital ones. "If you can digitize something, there will be a lot of competition, for the simple reason that the market functions very well”. When Nordström later sat down for an interview with your reporter, it happened in something called a smart meeting cube – which turned out to be a good example of his thesis. Founded in November 2015, Smartblock has seized the non-digital market for professional meetings (and improved ability to focus at work). Just two years after its founding, Smartblock's projected turnover is €3 million euros, or four times last year's. Smartblock also says it expects to turn a profit of €200k euros; a result your standard VC-backed app can only dream of two years after launch. Among some recent Finnish success stories, there are further signs that Nordström may be on to something. From phone booths to hairdressers Take Smartblock’s indirect Finnish market competitor, Framery, which has become a leading producer of office phone booths. The Tampere-based company had €17.6 million euros in turnover in 2016, with profits amounting to more than 3,5 million euros. Last year’s revenue grew almost 250 percent on the previous year, according to Finnish public company data. When Finnish business daily Kauppalehti recently compared the performance of Series A-backed Finnish startups of the past five years, it found that among the 88 - mostly tech - companies surveyed, the best performer was SuperPark, a chain of indoor activity parks founded in 2012. This year, Kauppalehti estimates, SuperPark will post €14 million in revenue, and is on track to double that amount next year on the back of an expansion to Asia. Finally, Finnish hairdresser chain M Room's revenue has almost quadrupled between 2012-2016, to €2.4 million. The company is now expanding aggressively to the United States, where it plans to open some 200 franchises by 2020. One way to claim an edge in mainly non-digital markets, beyond expanding globally, is to use digital components to make your product stand out. Smartblock's CEO, Janne Orava, gave an example: “We are piloting IoT-sensors, and we have just introduced the Microsoft Surface Hub [screens] in our cube’s. We have also used the Microsoft Hololens - as the first company in the world according to Microsoft - as a sales tool”, he told BI Nordic.