

Inventor or Innovator - Are Both True Entrepreneurs? - mollylynn
http://www.infochachkie.com/inventors-vs-innovators/#more-261
This article is a nice continuation of the questions first discussed in "Are You An Entrepreneur?"<p>I like the clear definitions of each person's role at a venture.
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WebGiant
For those of us who dream about bringing a life changing product to the world,
this article brings great hope in the form of understanding why most inventors
need innovators.

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matthewmeredith
Agreed. There really is no debate here, as both parties need each other.
However, I do agree with the distinction that Inventors are like "parents who
enjoy 'making babies' but abandon their children once they begin to cry."

Great line!

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skmurphy
It's a ridiculous characterization of inventors: it sounds like the definition
of a dilettante not an inventor.

For the most part it's difficult for inventors to appreciate where their
inventions will find their first market. Peter Drucker details this in an
interview in Inc. magazine
[http://www.inc.com/magazine/19960515/2083_Printer_Friendly.h...](http://www.inc.com/magazine/19960515/2083_Printer_Friendly.html)
which builds on his work in "Innovation and Entrepreneurship"
[http://www.amazon.com/Innovation-Entrepreneurship-Peter-F-
Dr...](http://www.amazon.com/Innovation-Entrepreneurship-Peter-F-
Drucker/dp/0060851139/)

Drucker: The first entrepreneurial pitfall comes when the entrepreneur has to
face the fact that the new product or service is not successful where he or
she thought it would be but is successful in a totally different market. Many
businesses disappear because the founder-entrepreneur insists that he or she
knows better than the market.

Inc.: So, often the entrepreneur is actually succeeding but doesn’t realize
it?

Drucker: No, it’s worse than that. He or she rejects success. You want
examples? There are thousands of them, but one of the best is over 100 years
old.

A man by the name of John Wesley Hyatt had invented the roller bearing. He
made up his mind that it was just right for the axles of railroad freight
cars. Railroads traditionally stuffed the wheels of their cars with rags
soaked in oil to handle the friction. The railroads, however, were not ready
for radical change; they liked their rags. And Mr. Hyatt went bankrupt trying
to persuade them otherwise.

When Alfred Sloan, the man who later built GM, graduated from MIT at the head
of his class in the mid-1890s, he asked his father to buy him Hyatt’s small
bankrupt business. Unlike Hyatt, Sloan was willing to broaden his vision of
the product. It turned out that the roller bearing was ideal for the
automobile, which was just coming to market. In two years Sloan had a
flourishing business; for 20 years Henry Ford was his biggest customer.

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Alexian
I've never even heard of Philo before reading this. Did anyone else know that
he was responsible for inventing the modern television? (He definitely wasn't
the innovator who profited from it)

