Innovate, Iterate and then Innovate Again
One of the issues of a young startup is the question of innovation. Here are the questions that come up:
1) How much should we innovate?
2) How often should we innovate?
3) What should our innovations focus on?
What most startups dont focus on is: when and what do I iterate on?
The general rule is innovate or die, but thats great in words, but not so great in practice. Innovate too much, and you are unfocused. Innovate backend stuff, and it appears that you are not innovating at all. Innovate in a non-linear fashion and you lose the excitement of the innovation.
Many founders are technologists that started by trying to solve a personal problem. “I hate it when X happens, what can I do to correct it?”
The problems begin to occur when “building a business” enters the equation. Now, innovation and all the “cool shit” you develop have the sole purpose of moving the business forward.
So, what is the answer?
Like most things, its simple. Engage your community and find out the problems that your users have. Innovate around those. Dont listen to one person; listen to the rising noise around problems.
Take Intense Debate. They recently released what seems like a small feature: The ability to have a tweet sent every time I comment on an blog with Intense Debate.
This is was in response to their community asking for a way to let people know that a conversation was occurring around a blog post.
With this feature, Jon and crew did some things right. You can modify the text of the tweet and its off by default. Brilliant.
They missed on the real value of Twitter. That twitter is a two way conversation, not a circus barker for the crap I am posting online. Where they could provide real value is in generating a conversation not just a notification that comments are occurring.
Also, from a publisher perspective, the feature is either on or off and I cant select the specific comments that get tweeted, rather they all get tweeted, or they all dont.
Interesting innovation. The type of innovation that is indicative of the early stage Intense Debate is in. The type of innovation that a true hacker technologist bangs out overnight.
But, Intense Debate is a business. Where they will win with this innovation is the speed of the iteration.
And thats the answer: Innovate. Listen to your community. Then iterate.
It’s really that simple.
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Your post also goes back to the way I treat a stack of tickets/issues users have. Fix it the first time, and if you keep seeing it again, that is an area to fix/innovate.
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Dave and I have been discussing this very topic of late. How does a young company with a hot technology AND a customer base leverage that customer community to make the right choices in moving the product / solution forward.
The cool and groovy enhancements can be bright shiny objects that distract from building upon current success to gain market share / adoption and grow the business.
You captured it - if you have a customer base - listen to the collective voice, make decisions that will create loyalty and keep you ahead of the pack.
Cool post.
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Thanks. I think that often young companies focus on the volume of
innovations versus the quality. At the same time, its a real balancing
act. Look at FriendFeed. They innovated early, and now are just
iterating on their basic concept. Their competitor SocialThing focused
on some early innovations, but then disappeared off the face of the
earth. The only thing I can think of is that they are back "in the
lab" coming up with new innovations, while their current feature set
and community languishes.
Innovate, Iterate then Innovate again, really successful companies do
this again and again.
Good luck!
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