SUMMARY
This is the third episode in our Spotlight Series – we’re talking quickly about innovation mistakes. What mistakes are companies making and how can they circumvent these problems and think through innovation differently. In under three minutes, we get through it all. Stay tuned for next week’s episode.
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Speaking of Mistakes – here are some to avoid when contracting a software development company.
Full Transcript
Erin Srebinski [00:12]: What are some common mistakes or pitfalls innovators make?
Josh Barker [00:16]: This one is a really good question because I think the most common mistake than an innovator makes is thinking that innovation happens by a Steve Jobs type person, right? They have a smart person or set of people group of people that have ideas or an idea. They bring it to market they say this is the idea let’s go build it. So a couple of things are problematic in that model is that innovation comes from one or a couple of people. That’s a fallacy.
Certainly, innovation comes from everywhere, right? It comes from anyone in the organization. Innovation can be systematized. A lot of people say, “I’m just not creative.” Well, innovation can be systematized. You can create a process out of innovation.
JB [01:01]: A lot of people also think that because it only happens in a set of people, they also think that once they get this idea they need to go build it right away. However, this is a huge fallacy. That’s why we were talking about entrepreneurs with very limited resources, including cash. There’s a danger when you start to have an abundance of resources and no constraints. When you have enough cash to go out and build something so that you’ll just go do it.
I’ve seen it all over the place that you know we’re talking multiple millions of dollars. People have thought of a great idea and they said let’s go build this. Therefore, they invest all this money up front to go build this software product. They bring it to market and at that moment they realize, “Oh crap no one really wants this.”
So the huge mistake is instead of rewinding, I’m again going to lean on that book again Lean Startup. Think like a startup. Think in terms of constraints. How can we do this cheaply and validate that this is an actual need in the market prior to actually investing all this money into innovating? That’s definitely a tip, I would say, is make sure you validate it before you build it.
Podcast transcript edited for clarity and readability.
