

How To Develop Ideas That Will Disrupt Your Industry - emmanuelory
http://mashable.com/2011/02/17/disruptive-thinking-innovation/

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blhack
How to disrupt an industry:

There are hundreds and hundreds of tiny industries that technology seems to
have forgotten (I work in one of them). There is a forklift dealership that I
pass on my way to lunch every few days, what type of computing infrastructure
do you think they have? What type of information do you think they give to
their customers?

I bet there is a lot of carbon-copy paper, and filing cabinets involved. If
they're really advanced, I bet there's an old IBM baby mainframe sitting in a
closet somewhere with some twinax terminals connected to it.

Here's a company that's throwing really really expensive "I need this" (a
forklift isn't a luxury) equipment around. I'd bet you that they've got money
to spend on tech, they just don't know how.

Howabout office automation? Do you know how many times I get pitched by
"office solutions specialists" who have no idea what they're doing, or talking
about? There is _definitely_ some space for somebody who Knows What They're
Doing™ to get my money.

Do you know how terrible inventory management systems are? Pardon the
language, but _fucking horrible_.

I think a lot of tech people forget that there a whole world out there that
barely even knows that silicon valley exists. There are thousands and
thousands of small business that will pay large dollars for things, and for
these people (who are usually stuck in the technological late-80s/early-90s),
being "disruptive" is what most programmers think is normal.

~~~
ams6110
You'll have to pick a niche, understand it, build something, and then sell it.
I think it's unlikely that a forklift dealer would want to pay the cost of a
one-off custom system. I once was talking with such a business, their
technology was antique and they knew they needed to modernize but viewed my
$80,000 quote for custom software as too expensive. I considered pitching them
on the idea of building it and then licensing it to them, as long as I could
keep the rights to license it to other similar businesses. At the time I
decided not to pursue it at all, but that may be an approach to take with
small businesses that can't afford to pay outright for custom software or
systems.

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ThomPete
I find this a welcome change from the "ideas are worthless, execution is
everything" cult posts.

They are of course right on the money when the idea is "I wan't to build a WOW
community" but that is at least in my view a very narrow definition of what
ideas are all about.

~~~
erikstarck
I still thing there is merit to that notion.

I'd like to think of it this way: execution is the active searching of the
problem space until you find a local maxima. The idea is only the starting
point.

Sure, you can get lucky and find an idea that is already on a local maxima -
but you wouldn't know that without verifying.

Simply thinking "what if you sold socks that didn't match?" is far from enough
to prove that it's a good idea. If you gave it just five minutes you would
probably come up with a hundred similar seemingly weird ideas.

Some examples:

What if TVs were not boxes but bubble-shaped?

What if cars bounced like rubber balls? Would that make them safer?

What if pants had four legs? Of different lengths.

What if shoes were glued together?

What if I had an internet connected computer in my sight of vision constantly?
(This will happen, we all know that.)

What if books never ended?

What if people could grow all their food, including meat, at home, in a box
like a micro oven?

I can go on like this forever. How do I know which ideas are the good ones?

By testing them in the real world - searching the problem space for a local
maxima - that's the only way. And that takes execution and effort.

~~~
ThomPete
I completely agree with you.

But all you are saying is.

If you have an idea you have to try it out.

Yes obviously but try what out? What does it mean to execute.

And this is where it kind of falls apart from my point of view.

Saying "execution is everything" is as helpful as saying success is necessary
to be successful. It becomes a tautology.

It's true but it's not really helpful unless you really think that just
getting the idea is enough. But who here believes that?

What's great execution in one context is bad execution in another. Meaning
that you have to execute to figure out whether you executed well.

You have to run the program so to speak.

~~~
chc
"Execution is everything" is not tautological. It's not saying "execution is
necessary" — it's saying that how you execute makes an order of magnitude
greater difference than what idea you pick. Good execution will save all but
the worst ideas, but an amazing idea will still fail if not executed well.

For example, Apple's Newton PDA: Great idea — it caught on like wildfire when
Palm did the same thing a few years later. But it flopped when Apple did it,
because Apple's execution was flawed.

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dot
I like this article a lot.

How about a restaurant for three-somes full of tables for 3 and spring rolls
that divide equally?

A clothing brand that only sells one color/type of jeans, one t-shirt and one
button down. Instead of launching new collections every season, launch one new
product. Like a belt. It would stand out.

~~~
demallien
or a restaurant for solo diners? wifi, space for a laptop on the table, and
strictly one person per table, so you don't feel uncomfortable sitting all
alone - everyone else would be in the same boat...

~~~
roel_v
We have those, they're called 'couches'. The waiters deliver food on scooters.

~~~
VB6_Foreverr
LOL! Didn't get that at first. A restaurant with tables for 1 only reminds me
of a classroom full of new boys. Make eye contact at your peril.

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arkitaip
The book "Business Model Generation" by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur
is mandatory reading wrt disruptive innovation. It's thorough, fun to read and
beautifully designed. [http://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-
Visionaries-...](http://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-
Challengers/dp/0470876417/)

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JacobAldridge
An enjoyable read, and a worthwhile exercise for any business even if it has
no intention of launching a disruptive business model (at the very least,
they're thinking like the potential competition).

Worth remembering too - just because there's a gap in the market, doesn't mean
there's a market in the gap. Cliches like 'scratch your own itch', 'do market
research before product build', 'release early, release often' etc also have a
place when disrupting.

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aeden
This is really good article, probably one of the best I've seen come out of
Mashable. The exercise of determining what are the clichés of any industry
seems something you'd want to tackle with a group - maybe a good geek-out
exercise for entrepreneur meetups?

~~~
rpeden
The book by the article's author (Disrupt) is quite good too. It takes he
points in the article and expands on them, giving you concrete exercises to
work through to generate new ideas. While I don't think you can systematize
innovation, I do think there are certain things you can do to come up with
interesting business ideas.

If you're like me and find developing applications easy but have a very hard
time deciding what to create, I'd recommend reading Disrupt.

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pedalpete
'So, what was the problem that the solution addressed? Well, there wasn’t any
problem, and that’s exactly the point. '

Actually, there was a problem. Customers loose socks, leaving mismatched, or
socks get holes, leaving only one, etc. etc. etc.

They recognized a problem. They just came up with a creative way of dealing
with the problem which was to re-frame it as not being a problem at all.

The impressive thing is that you can disrupt a market through nothing but
marketing. You don't have to create a new product, find a new market, etc.
etc. It is possible to create a viable business through nothing but marketing.

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mdda
For lots of writing on purposeful creativity, have a look at Edward de Bono :
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_de_Bono>

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jonmc12
This is a lot like the framework proposed in 'Getting to Plan B'. That book
also has some nice spreadsheets to use.

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pella
[http://www.littlemissmatched.com/Catalog/womens_anklet_socks...](http://www.littlemissmatched.com/Catalog/womens_anklet_socks/Kooky_Scroll_Split_Anklet_Socks)

 _"Our most popular style of socks. This pack contains 3 socks that don’t
match, but perfectly coordinate ! "_

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intellection
"What do I think?" is a simple -- potentially as powerful -- thought.

It can be "disruptive thinking."

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buckwild
The number one way to "disrupt" your industry is to offer an expensive service
at a SIGNIFICANTLY lower price (while maintaining equivalent quality).

There's usually an unofficial cartel no one speaks of and when people start to
lose their margins, they start to take notice.

