| Chapter Highlights |
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| » CONNECTING WITH SELF - Is Innovation for You? |
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| To believe in oneself is to put oneself into an innovative frame of mind. It’s difficult to innovate when we are not confident of our abilities to impact change. We most likely wouldn’t start making change happen if we didn’t believe change was attainable. Belief in oneself is paramount to embarking on the journey. |
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| Are you a believer? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to drive your passion forward? Do you have what it takes to go through the highs and lows that are inevitable along the path? The innovators we talked to share their views and experiences. |
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| » CONNECTING WITH AN IDEA - The Idea Is Only the Beginning |
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| The process of innovation requires an idea -- an idea of how something should be, rather than how it is today. While an idea by itself doesn’t mean much, there are things innovators have done to encourage the flow of ideas and to recognize a good one. We all have ideas, and what often is missing is the ability to choose the right one. |
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| What do you do with an idea? How do you gain the confidence that an idea is indeed a good one? With whom do you discuss your ideas and how much do you divulge? How much do you protect your intellectual property and at what cost? The innovators share strategies and thoughts on the topic. |
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| » CONNECTING WITH THE ENVIRONMENT– Adapting the Innovation |
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| The environment plays an extremely important role in the innovation process. Without the environment guiding the innovation process, not one innovation would succeed. The key lies in understanding the impact of the environment, and to leverage it. The environment includes factors that are beyond our control for the most part -- market conditions, customer and user behaviour, competition -- it all makes a difference. |
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| What do you look for when you’re innovating? Do you look at a top-down market analysis or a bottom-up analysis? What role does competition play in the eventual success of an innovation? The entrepreneurs we spoke with have created new markets and penetrated existing ones with success. |
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| » CONNECTING WITH TIMING - Selecting the Timing for Innovation |
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| Timing plays a critical role in an innovation’s success. It’s the one external factor that impacts the adoption of any innovation, thereby determining its success. Timing also plays a big role in our ability to balance the passion to innovate with the experience needed to bring an idea into reality. The concept of timing includes the notion that the availability of other innovations may be what makes the one you’re working on useful. |
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| Should you be an entrepreneur right after college or after gaining some industry experience? When is a good time to introduce a new concept to the market? Is it better to be early, and if so, how early does one need to be? What about entering an existing market with a better product? Timing is important, the innovators we spoke to agree. |
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| » CONNECTING WITH THE TEAM - Getting the Right People on Board |
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| Just as innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it rarely ever happens without a team. Not just a team of people to work on the innovation, but a team who is passionate about the work from the get-go. We haven’t met one innovator who said he or she was solely responsible for an innovation’s success. |
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| Who are the right people to bring on board? What is the correct sequence? What happens when the team isn’t working out? What are the characteristics of good founding teams? Successful innovators swear by their teams. The stars we spoke with share their experiences. |
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| » CONNECTING WITH MONEY –Using It to Scale an Innovative Effort, Not Start One |
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| Money, of course, has played a big role in bringing innovative ideas to market. There is the right kind of money and the right time for money. Too much money has killed companies, as has the involvement of money too early. With the recent explosion of venture capital, connecting with the right money at the right time can make a huge difference. |
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| What’s a good time to raise capital? What are the different approaches to money that work for early-stage companies? What value do investors bring to the table? What do investors look for in innovators and their teams? Hear from people who have raised smart money, and those who have funded them. |
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| » CONNECTING WITH CUSTOMERS - Listening, But Not Letting Them Take Over |
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| To monetize an innovation, it is critical to have customers who will use it. But the process of innovation requires us to listen to customers and the market in a general way before the innovation is ever monetized. And the customers can’t tell us how to innovate; if they knew, they would do so themselves. |
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| What are the characteristics of early adopters? What are the pitfalls to avoid when listening to customers? When the customers say NO, what are they really saying YES to? What’s the difference between listening to what the customers are “whispering” about vs. what they’re shouting about? We saw strong consistency in opinions and experiences on this topic. |
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| » CONNECTING WITH HUMILITY – Pride Leads the Seven Deadly Sins |
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| An important component to successful innovation is keeping our pride and ego in check. If there’s one thing that has resulted in failures, it’s been our pride getting in the way of clear visibility into what the market was telling us. “I don’t know” is an innovator’s best friend. Checking oneself throughout the innovative process sets us up for continual improvement and eventual success. |
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| How do you deal with your ego? How hard is it to admit that you don’t know? What are the ways to keep our pride and ego at bay? How does humility impact the ability of a company to adapt? This is a sensitive topic for most innovators, and the stories we heard confirm the importance of managing the impact of ego. |
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| » CONNECTING WITH FAILURE - Mistakes May Not Be a Bad Thing |
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| We are bound to make mistakes. The trick is learning from our own mistakes and those of others before us, and not making the same mistake twice. If we aren’t making mistakes, we are not trying hard enough. There will be many failures along the innovation process. Each failure is responsible for a follow-on success. |
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How do you deal with failures along the way? Is failure a precondition to success? When is it acceptable to make mistakes? How do you deal with mistakes constructively? How do you tackle the pressures of a society that can’t accept failures? Successful innovators expect mistakes and learn from them. |
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| » CONNECTING WITH SPIRITUALITY - The Power of Equanimity |
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| We face success along the way as well as failure, and success can be more dangerous than failure. Success has to be taken in stride. If success isn’t managed, it can destroy a team and its ability to listen to the market, resulting in inflated egos and ultimately a bigger failure. The key is maintaining equanimity, no matter what happens. |
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| What connection does spirituality have with innovation? Does faith play a role in eventual success? What are the advantages of tapping into your spiritual side? What lessons can be drawn from early scriptures? Innovators share their thoughts and beliefs about the powers that can’t be explained and the importance of equanimity. |
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