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Why the Status Quo is Not Ready For Your Innovation?

Moon Up Close by Gustavo (creative commons)

The more innovative the more barriers the status quo will erect in your way.
Guy Kawasaki

Innovation can be like
selling tickets to the moon

There is a direct correlation between how innovative your product (or idea) is and how many barriers you will encounter.

Every product faces barriers.

If you have personal experience with delivering a product or idea to market, I am confident that your journey was full of challenges.

Let’s agree that business is difficult.

And innovating anything takes time, effort, energy, smarts, marketing and money.

But New is not the same as Innovative.

[Innovation] + [Status Quo]
=More Barriers In Your Way

Innovators see the future
before it’s possible

In 2005, my friend Vance Brown envisioned how gasoline pricing should all be controlled from a mobile phone.

There was no path, no map and no customers asking for the solution.

  • The Palm Treo was the only Smartphone on the market.
  • High-speed Internet connections were not available in most convenience stores.
  • Devices were not connected.

We started selling futures.

It was like throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what would stick.

In hindsight it was like asking someone if they would like to go to the moon.

Me:   “Would you like to go to the moon in the future?”

Prospective Customer:   “Yes, I’d love to.”

Me:   “Would you go ahead and pre-pay for your ticket now and then we will go build the rocket ship?”

(PC):   “Why don’t you come back when the rocket ship is finished and we can talk”?

Status Quo Erected Barriers

  • We like the way we’ve been doing it for 25 years.
  • It has never been done before.
  • The Internet is too slow.
  • It will never pass our security audit.
  • My staff will never get behind it.

It took us the better part of eight years to break down these barriers.

Guy advises to do whatever it takes

We adopted the Free Trial approach to get the software in the customer’s hands.

Once they could witness the Innovation first-hand, they were believers.

Our solution was not merely a nuance change. 

It was a revolutionary change to the customer’s core beliefs and day-to-day operations.

Innovative products are not easy to sell.

Incremental Improvement is not Innovation

I believe that the distinction of Innovative should be reserved for very few.

Key question:

Is there a model, a path, or a similar solution to follow?

Why the iPad mini is not innovative?

Examples of New but not Innovative:

  1. GoToMeeting HD video  HD quality video for your conferencing.
  2. iPad Mini  Smaller screen than iPad.
  3. The Samsung Galaxy phone  The biggest smartphone screen.

In each of these examples they already have customers buying a similar product.

  • Improve your video quality
  • Shrink your device size by 40%
  • Increase your screen

I don’t believe they are experiencing the kind of Status Quo barriers that Guy Kawasaki is speaking about.

Cool-Yes.  Innovative-No.

Innovation in the face of the Status Quo

iPad

Innovation: 

No keyboard. Wi-Fi only.
Download from our App store.

Status Quo Barriers:

Obsolete soon, Already have a computer and smartphone,
No Flash, on AT&T, Too heavy, No camera, Too expensive.

Netflix

Innovation:

Stop going to blockbuster,“We will mail it to you or watch it over the Internet”.

Status Quo Barriers:

Started in 1997 with no peers.  Offered Pre-Paid Postage,
Limited titles, limited geographic coverage,
delays due to US mail, Subscription model instead of per title.

Square

Innovation:
Accept a credit card for payment from anyone.

Status Quo Barriers:

Credit Card companies in control since 1950’s.
Old Model: Minimum fees per month and higher % rate per transaction.

Can you image the naysayers?

I wish we could have attended the meetings at Apple, Netflix and Square when some heretic announced his/her ideas for the above.

You can’t make a computer without a keyboard or disk drive.

You can’t mail a DVD.

Only businesses can accept Credit Cards.

Why the Status Quo usually wins?

It’s easier.

It’s easier to keep providing incremental improvement to existing products or services that customers are already buying.

It’s risky to create a product that cannot fit into an existing category.

Reference:

Guy’s quote from his blog in 2006.

The way life should work is that innovative products are easy to sell. Dream on. Life isn’t fair. Indeed, the more innovative, the more barriers the status quo will erect in your way. Entrepreneurs should understand this upfront and not get flustered when market acceptance comes slowly. I’ve found that the best way to break barriers is enable people to test-drive your innovation: download your software; take home your hardware, whatever it takes.

Read more from Guy Kawasaki  

5 Reasons Why You Should Start Creating in Your Garage

Walt Disney’s first advertisement

I started working on that (animated short) in the garage
while I was still working for the film studio.  

Great Beginnings Start in the Garage

Walt Disney started creating his animated shorts in his garage while he still had a day job.

The world was forever changed because of his unwavering commitment to bring his ideas to life.

You dream about changing the world for good.  And yet you aren’t making any headway on your master plan.

You have this secret hope that you might receive a FedEx package with an invitation inside that reads,

You are cordially invited to begin doing the work of your dreams;
Please report to duty on Monday morning.

Come on?

Instead of waiting for that mythical invitation to pursue your life’s passion,
you should start working in the garage today.

It is the best hope you have.

How am I so sure? 

This summer my family and I were in San Francisco and we visited the Walt Disney Family Museum (Read more on the museum).

Listen to the podcast interview.

On the wall there was one quote that lured me to quickly write it down.

I started working on that …..in the garage.

In the early 1920’s Walt Disney was working in Los Angeles, CA for a film studio.

  • His name was not yet in neon lights.
  • His dreams had not yet been realized.
  • While he still had a day job.
  • While he was putting food on the table.
  • While he was a freelancer trading hours for a day’s wage.
  • He was secretly working in the garage on his best stuff.

Walt Disney altered American family history because he started tinkering in the garage.

I think you should start altering the trajectory of your future by creating in your garage.

Why your best work is born in the garage?

1) No one is watching.

That’s right.  No one is over your shoulder watching you work asking if you are done yet.  You have the opportunity to work on your craft without anyone else witnessing your creation.

2) There is no pressure.

You don’t have a deadline.  You are free of obligation to deliver a finished work.  There are no customers tapping their toes waiting on your final product.

3) Your livelihood does not count on it.

When decoupling your livelihood from your craft there is an immense amount of pressure relieved.  So what if you mess it up?  So what if it sucks?
So what if you start over 52 times?

Paying your mortgage is not tied to the result.

4) You will never have more passion than you do right now.

Never again will you be so unadulterated in your view of this project.

The purity of your passion is like that of a Hawaiian black sand beach
just after a volcano erupted virgin lava onto her shore.

Yep that damn sexy.

Think of the welled up desire that you have to pour out onto the paper, the sculpture, the wood, or the guitar strings.

When else will you possess this poetic a prose?

5) The rent is cheap

The garage looks pretty affordable compared to a two-year lease for an office.  Pause and appreciate the luxury of being nimble, thrifty and dynamic.

Once you hire a bunch of people and start spending all of your time meeting with attorneys and accountants everything changes.

Bonus advice: You already have a Thing

A good friend advised me that the best time to start working on your next thing is right now while you have a thing.   

Isn’t that great advice?

The garage is perfect. 

The garage is the perfect figurative or physical place for you to start honing your craft.

Where would the world be if Walt Disney had not started tinkering with animation in his garage?

Where will we be if you don’t start in your garage?

Other compelling nudges for you to start:

Everyone is waiting on you.

Start doing the job you wish you had.

Do you feel like you are playing for the farm team?

What do you think you have to loose?

5 Reasons Why You Should Start Creating in Your Garage (Like Walt Disney)?

“I started working on that (animated short) in the garage
while I was still working for the film studio.” Walt Disney  

Great Beginnings Start in the Garage

Walt Disney started creating his animated shorts in his garage while he still had a day job.

The world was forever changed because of his unwavering commitment to bring his ideas to life.

You dream about changing the world for good.  And yet you aren’t making any headway on your master plan.

You have this secret hope that you might receive a FedEx package with an invitation inside that reads,

You are cordially invited to begin doing the work of your dreams;
Please report to duty on Monday morning.

Come on?

Instead of waiting for that mythical invitation to pursue your life’s passion,
you should start working in the garage today.

It is the best hope you have.

How am I so sure? 

This summer my family and I were in San Francisco and we visited the Walt Disney Family Museum (Read more on the museum).

Listen to the podcast interview.

On the wall there was one quote that lured me to quickly write it down.

I started working on that …..in the garage.

In the early 1920’s Walt Disney was working in Los Angeles, CA for a film studio.

  • His name was not yet in neon lights.
  • His dreams had not yet been realized.
  • While he still had a day job.
  • While he was putting food on the table.
  • While he was a freelancer trading hours for a day’s wage.
  • He was secretly working in the garage on his best stuff.

Walt Disney altered American family history because he started tinkering in the garage.

I think you should start altering the trajectory of your future by creating in your garage.

Why your best work is born in the garage?

1) No one is watching.

That’s right.  No one is over your shoulder watching you work asking if you are done yet.  You have the opportunity to work on your craft without anyone else witnessing your creation.

2) There is no pressure.

You don’t have a deadline.  You are free of obligation to deliver a finished work.  There are no customers tapping their toes waiting on your final product.

3) Your livelihood does not count on it.

When decoupling your livelihood from your craft there is an immense amount of pressure relieved.  So what if you mess it up?  So what if it sucks?
So what if you start over 52 times?

Paying your mortgage is not tied to the result.

4) You will never have more passion than you do right now.

Never again will you be so unadulterated in your view of this project.

The purity of your passion is like that of a Hawaiian black sand beach
just after a volcano erupted virgin lava onto her shore.

Yep that damn sexy.

Think of the welled up desire that you have to pour out onto the paper, the sculpture, the wood, or the guitar strings.

When else will you possess this poetic a prose?

5) The rent is cheap

The garage looks pretty affordable compared to a two-year lease for an office.  Pause and appreciate the luxury of being nimble, thrifty and dynamic.

Once you hire a bunch of people and start spending all of your time meeting with attorneys and accountants everything changes.

Bonus advice: You already have a Thing

A good friend advised me that the best time to start working on your next thing is right now while you have a thing.   

Isn’t that great advice?

The garage is perfect. 

The garage is the perfect figurative or physical place for you to start honing your craft.

Where would the world be if Walt Disney had not started tinkering with animation in his garage?

Where will we be if you don’t start in your garage?

Other compelling nudges for you to start:

Everyone is waiting on you.

Start doing the job you wish you had.

Do you feel like you are playing for the farm team?

What do you think you have to loose?

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