
Disruption is not a strategy - digisth
http://reactionwheel.net/2016/05/disruption-is-not-a-strategy.html
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petewailes
There's something important in the latter half of this: understanding that
this isn't useful as a guide, but as a warning.

No-one realistically sets out to create "a Google". People set out to solve a
problem. Sometimes that problem turns out to fuel vast business, sometimes
not. You can guess at the size, but sometimes you're going to be wrong (hello
Twitter).

You can aim to replace a business, but it's near impossible to do it because
you know what the future of that thing will be (hello Windows Mobile). Even
ARM didn't know smartphones were going to be a thing, at the scale they are.
ARM ate Intel's lunch, not by going after smartphones, but by making
processors designed to work with virtually no power. Smartphones just happened
to come along and need that.

You can't intend to be disruptive. You can aim to become a big business, but
that's out-competing, not disrupting, and they're not the same (hello
Snapchat). The market tells you you were disruptive after the fact.

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rhaps0dy
Good comment. However for future readers, I wish to point out that "ARM are
Intel's lunch" is probably instead "ARM ate Intel's lunch".

That might save some confusion :)

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petewailes
Edited. Good spot!

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mrec
Also, is there a "don't" missing in "you know what the future of that thing
will be"?

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zby
A great article.

One addition - the answer to the question why 'disruption' became so popular
should include that it is so ego stroking.

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prof_hobart
Although I agree that having a business plan that's based on nothing more than
a concept of "being disruptive" is not much of a plan at all, I feel that in
some parts, he's picking a strawman and arguing against that.

He claims that "I’m sure what the presenter of the slide was getting at was
Clayton Christensen’s definition of disruption from his classic book The
Innovator’s Dilemma. ".

He then goes on to say (talking about Square and Uber) that "neither of these
companies were disruptive in The Innovator’s Dilemma sense". However, I'd be
surprised if the presenter wasn't thinking precisely of people like Uber and
the type of "disruption" they've brought to the taxi industry.

So, if they are thinking of Uber, and if Uber's disruption isn't the sort
being talked about in the Innovators dilemma, then I suspect they weren't
thinking of Christensen’s definition at all.

I'm not sure why disruption has to be less functional - it just needs to be
tackling the root problem (and often redefining what that root problem is) in
a different way to the incumbent.

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ganeumann
OP.

Meh, every single startup I've seen in the past 25 years has claimed that they
are tackling their problem differently than their competitors in some way. If
this is what disruption means, then it's the quintessential distinction
without a difference. It's the entrepreneurs' equivalent of a VC saying "we
add value." A waste of pixels. And if that's the entire content of your
strategy--you think being different is all the strategy you need because,
"disruptive"\--then chances are you're cooked.

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galistoca
There's a huge difference between "tackling the problem differently than their
competitors" and "tackling the problem differently in a way that their
competitors can't imitate easily without sacrificing their assets". The latter
is disruptive, the former is just what doing business means. I think Uber does
fit into the latter.

Just to be clear, I do agree with your general tone of the article, it's just
that your Uber part made me cringe.

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sharemywin
Uber succeeded mostly by violating local licensing laws. And federal
employment laws which they may still need to pay the piper for.

~~~
stcredzero
_> violating local licensing laws_

They recognized that the local licensing laws were causing horrible market
distortions or outright market dysfunctions. The salient points are the market
dysfunctions. Where is the market failing and causing misery? What
businesses/organizations have captive customer bases, really don't care about
bad user experiences, and have outdated equipment?

20th century cabs were miserable, and even faced with competition, taxis are
slow to adapt, have outdated technology, and persist in poor user experiences.

~~~
sharemywin
most small businesses do it they pay fines and penalties of 100% or more. They
were able to play politics and won, congrats to them. didn't work so well for
theranos, lending club, zenefits.

~~~
galistoca
You seem to think being disruptive means it has to be always super successful
and always ethical. Being disruptive has nothing to do with how successful
they are. There are tons of disruptive approaches that failed. Also being
disruptive has nothing to do with whether they're ethical or not. Maybe you
have your own little definition, but that's not the definition the rest of the
world uses.

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stcredzero
_Christensen’s theory is descriptive, not prescriptive. It names a process but
does not tell you how to generate that process_

Something similar has been said of Marxism, in that it's an interesting way to
think about what has come before, but has no grounding when it tries to talk
about what should happen in the future.

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ThomPete
Disruption is not something you set out to do, but it can be a result of what
you are doing.

Clayton Christensens "innovators dilemma" isn't a book about how to disrupt,
but how disruption happens.

The problem with a large part of the newspeak in the startup community is that
it has become too formulaic.

10 things, how you, why you, how to.

I avoid these articles like the plague as they have nothing to do with running
a startup.

~~~
swalsh
"I avoid these articles like the plague as they have nothing to do with
running a startup."

They're just for SEO anyways. I've been trying to learn more about marketing
lately, and one of the biggest issues I've run into is that almost all the
articles about marketing are marketing materials themselves.

~~~
ThomPete
Yes. Content marketing as they call it.

My point is just that market insights doesn't come on formula. You can't read
a book and learn about marketing. You can go out and do it or surround you
with people who have experience doing it.

Sure you can learn a little here and there. But hardly anything that will make
your company make it compared to those who didn't.

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zamalek
Interesting perspective, color my beliefs altered. So far as tech goes I think
that disruption could still be an _outcome_ that you aim for (certainly not in
medicine). Even then you may not plan for the eventuality, merely by
serendipity absolutely know that you are sitting on a disruptive idea.

It's a great thing to have and maybe something that you can't plan for.

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serg_chernata
Reminds me of "going viral" and how everyone kept saying: "let's create a
viral video".

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joeyspn
Relevant:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7982410](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7982410)

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askyourmother
But after we disrupted our pivot and enabled a sharing economy, we forgot what
we were actually doing and when back to real jobs.

