Every business should use its profitable first act to reinvest in developing a second.

Ebay shares jumped 14% this week on the back of strong gains with Paypal. This was just one month after Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Building a frontline (retail, online community, events, customer service consumer interaction) is key to knowing how to knowledgeably direct these profits in betting big on the second act.

On the one hand, a Social Business with a frontline that regularly absorbs and processes customer insight. With insight, Ebay is able to knowledgeably direct profits from its first act into the development of a successful second.

On the other, an Industrial Business that stuck to film and forsook its frontline. Customer service suffered. No insights ever fed back to management. Kodak could have been in the mobile business by now but sat at watched the Apple iPhone become the most popular camera in the world by volume on Flickr.

img source Crunchbase