Innovation Is Not Rocket Science

It Actually Is, But Not the Way Many People Think.

I wrote this article to Founders and professionals of actual business influence. The below points discuss shortly some of the lessons I learned in the past 13 years working with outstanding business talent.

There Is No "Correct" Size For Innovation

Is your company large enough to innovate? 

Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg? 

In my professional opinion, it was a type of dinosaur. Joke aside, anyone has a seat at the table of innovation. Depends on how you look at the issue. See the next point!

Innovate the Core Business

Applying proven innovation methods to "old" business models can and should be done at every company that wishes to survive and thrive. This also happens to be the favorite amongst most stakeholders in "serious" organizations.

Connecting the Dots

We barely ever invent the wheel. The truth is that many if not all amazing products or solutions popped up at one moment or another in many companies. Yet there are a handful of companies that turn ideas into scalable products. Leaning the material, asking questions, organize this knowledge, and using this data to evolve your hypothesis is essential.

Victory Has A 100 Fathers, But Failure Is An Orphan

Many companies look at innovation as a great singular moment of achievement

This could not be farther away from the truth. Innovation is a process. As a marketer and full-stack developer, I can tell you I see no value in testing singular hypothesis nor expecting to "hit gold" as a result of ad hoc tries or "directives that descended from the C-level".

Innovation should be built brick-by-brick. The data you have should come from the right sources, that should be added to your market knowledge, which then should be tested. Rapid and agile prototyping, creating minimum viable products and test cases shouldn't take you too long. Thus innovators never succeed alone. They should have the support of the company and its people. I am aware that I sound like a fresh enthusiastic graduate.

But this is the only way to do innovation right

You Shall Innovate Because You Cannot Afford Not To

I work with many startups and scaleups and I know for a fact, that our little world will look radically different in a maximum of 5 years from today. I look at large standing organizations and their attitude towards compartmentalization and attitude and I cannot help but wonder. Will they survive the coming 5 years? Are they aware that there is a small startup that is out to get them? Leaders do not appreciate the warnings until it is too late. Since

innovation for most companies is NOT a money matter

I wonder what holds them back? Are we afraid of success? Are we afraid to rock the boat? Are we afraid to ask questions? You answer for yourself.

Digital Is Here and It Is Not Going Anywhere

Seeing the online media business develop from manual ad placement buying and selling to the kind of programmatic API driven multi-layered digital economy as it is today makes me wonder. Shouldn't innovation and digitalization be a high priority for old-school businesses?

It is not hard, neither costly nor takes long to set your company's mindset to digital. All you need is the right people. Really, all it takes is talent.

I hope you made it this far and you appreciate my points. In 2020 literally, any company has a shot at reaching truly scalable success.

It is your vision that drives your company, not your gross assets.