Rich Thinking: Want to grow like the 1990s?

David Hasselhoff brought the Berlin Wall down*. East became West.

Guitar bands and dance music went global, and growth was everywhere.

Can we have the 1990s back please?


This isn’t about nostalgia.

Instead, here are 6 things that were happening then. And now.

With 6 ways we can use them to grow faster.

1990s No.1 - New tech makes buying easier

In the ‘90s, search engines and online retail brought the infinite catalogue, and a dot-com boom.

The bubble burst, but the shift in shopping habits was permanent.

At Boots, we were imagining 3D health encyclopedias, pharmacies to your door, and digital shopping alerts in stores.

Today, the expanse of the social internet can feel overwhelming.

So now we can shift to personal AI agents - to reduce the decision fatigue, the scrolling, the tabs.

“Claude, always book me a friendly no-frills hotel near a metro station, with great beds, funky art and a good coffee space to work from (I don’t need the 5 star facilities).”

But it’s not just functional. Not just a repeatable command.

Entertainment and retail are great friends.

Remember the origins of As Seen On Screen (now ASOS)?

In 2021, at John Lewis, we made the first steps to buying products live, inside social media streams of real life fashion events.

When everyone has slick transactions, the winners will rediscover the art of shopping.

1990s No.2 - Progressive countries coming together

Back then, East and West were just being reunited in Europe.

Liberal democracy and free-trading economies unleashed.

In my T-Mobile days, it seemed remarkable to be visiting our branded offices in Eastern Europe, little more than a decade after communist regimes fell.

In 2026, barriers to trade are back.

Covid had already questioned our dependence on global supply chains.

The original purpose of the internet was to create a decentralised network. Hack off one part of it, and the rest can still connect via another path.

So top-down global rules of trade might be in question. But bonds between like-minded nations can grow stronger.

Countries with shared progressive values, forming new alliances.

The security of home-grown industries, energy and data storage. Balanced with each country specialising in its natural advantages.

Now there are calls for data sovereignty in Europe, data stored locally. And homegrown tech champions.

If new Big Tech challengers can gain ground, it could boost competition and growth.

The opportunity of going 2nd isn’t sexy.

But to borrow the words of Avis, “We try harder” can be more fun.

1990s No.3 - Culture gone global

McDonald’s opened in Moscow in 1990.
Grunge, indie rock, electronic dance music went around the world, alongside pop (yeah, Spice Girls)

Now K-pop, Insta fashion and cute indie coffee shops spread across the globe in seconds.

The risk is that everything looks the same.

Beige, distressed wood and industrial steel commoditised experiences.

Or a global blast of hypercolour, vivid, maximal, disposable entertainment.

Smart brands know that celebrating the unusual, the weird, the distinctive matters.

Building like-minded communities of customers, wherever they are.

At giffgaff, a mobile community founded on customers supporting customers, we experimented with how much members wanted to define the brand’s future.

Joining in conversations that are already happening, not just broadcasting at customers.

Meanwhile, people tire of the global influencer manipulation. The excesses of life on screen.

Instead, seeking more original experiences.

The opportunity? Pioneering brands bring weird-thinking tribes together, wherever they are.

Communities that are more than a message board, a follow or a like.

More relevant than a name on a sponsorship banner.

Live events that blur digital fantasy with in-person reality.

1990s No.4 - Good business crossed borders

The 1990s were the start of Peak MBA.

Rules of business efficiency for everyone to follow.

Foundations sorted. Best practice. Uniform.

Necessary stuff. Because the basics matter.

But when we travel we see that business is still done a little differently.

How we talk, how we listen, what we value.

As more of us live and work in new places, and as we build relationships across cultures, business ideas blend.

How about Nordic design and ethics, alongside Californian tech optimism?

That’ll give you something like the Oura ring.

More than another wearable churning out stats.

Blending design, insight and behaviour change coaching.

Global talent helping us to take charge of our health and fitness. Not just our spreadsheets.

Partnerships and alliances that celebrate what different people do well, rather than smoothing to the same standards.

1990s No.5: Individual empowerment

The 1990s were hedonistic in places where the cost of going out fell. And more young people went away to college.

Triggering an explosion of live festivals, clubs and the products that went with them.

Fast forward to global financial meltdowns, a pandemic, war and a cost of living crisis.

Health is wealth when the old money is hard to come by.

We can’t control economic headwinds, we can work on our own wellbeing.

I’ve worked with health tech startups, targeting vital behaviour change - to help patients take control, feel better and save resources. Winning National Health Service innovation funds.

But I’ve also run a year-long personal experiment in fat loss and strength gains.

A combination of smartwatch, real world coaching, YouTube, a weight training app, and a lot of AI analysis.

I lost over 10kg, then gained back 7kg while getting stronger, and staying pretty lean this time.

Less a humble brag, more a humiliating lesson in behaviour change after your knee gives way and cholesterol shoots up.

So the partying hasn’t stopped, we just know more about how to optimise it.

And spontaneity may be on the rise too. Nobody wants ChatGPT to schedule their party.

How about the wearable coach that gets the long game:

“Ali, your work, food, sleep, exercise and home social time were all spot-on this week - if there’s a chance to be a little reckless this weekend, it’ll do you good.”

(because some of us need to be told).

1990s No.6 - Planet, people + profit

In the ‘90s it was Corporate Social Responsibility.

It often didn’t go deep. Charitable programmes. Good intent around recycling.

But even the enlightened Victorian capitalists knew that looking after their employees’ health and education paid dividends.

And this was the peak era of The Body Shop and Ben & Jerry’s showing greener profits were possible.

Today, there are plenty of sustainability and net zero strategies.

Still not so many that flow through the everyday goals and work of every employee.

Yet edits of environmental damage or greenwashing hypocrisy expose business risk in seconds.

And cost savings and stability are still available - from using fewer resources, from secure renewable energy made close to home.

The opportunity now isn’t more targets, and abstract number-crunching.

It’s thousands of experiments in making sustainability real, prototypes that scale up quickly.

As I learned from excellent Cambridge and University of the Arts sustainability courses:

There’s blockchain supply chain tracking, that proves your premium garment has been made under fair working conditions.

There’s biomimicry in design, so that we can revive methods of keeping buildings cool, with less energy needed for air conditioning.

Or making the cleaner option the easy option.

Like the work we designed in Manchester, to integrate public transport ticketing and wayfinding - to nudge people away from congested car commutes.

Rebooting optimism

The 1990s gave us the foundations, the promise.

Now technology can deliver what many started imagining back then.

In an era that can seem like permanent crisis, people and business have been in reactive mode.

But the ‘90s decade started with great uncertainty too.

Recession. Political change. A sense that the world was shifting.

By the middle of the decade people were demanding change.

By the second half, they were making it happen.

Rich Warmsley

I work with companies and teams to unlock growth again — through clearer direction, better product and service design, and new ways of working together. richwarms.com

(*Hasselhoff didn’t take down the Berlin Wall, of course, but comedian Josh Widdicombe tells the story of why some people think he did - on the Museum of Pop Culture podcast)