Innovative: Missing Opportunity – and That is Good!
Innovative products and services step outside of defined comfort zones.
Innovation puts something new into the marketplace – something that resonates with a target group of people – but that is also a headscratcher for many others.
Think of the Sony Walkman.
It is 1979. Sony releases the Walkman. General public reaction was likely:
What is this Walkman thing?
Why would someone want to walk around with a cassette player hooked on their belt?
No speaker?
I have to pay extra for headphones?
Where do you store your extra cassette tapes and the replacement batteries? Blue jeans aren’t exactly baggy in 1979!
Yes, we can look back now and realize that the Walkman started a personal listening device craze that, over the intervening decades, has become an entrenched part of society.
But it didn’t start that way.
In 1979, Sony had to make some decisions:
They had to choose one of several available music mediums that were competing in the marketplace (broadcast programming, 8-track, cassette, etc.).
They had to reduce the core functionality of the technology. The original Walkman could play tapes but couldn’t record them. It also didn’t have a radio. Boomboxes, which were very common in that day, had all that functionality – in a larger box.
Sony chose not to accommodate large swaths of music aficionados. Remember, during that time, we all had our rack-mounted home stereo systems with large stereo (or quadraphonic) speakers. The Walkman couldn’t match their sound quality and volume – they couldn’t compete in the home stereo market.
Boomboxes, the “luggable” home stereos, were the other competitor. In those days, music needed air space and big speakers to sound good! The Walkman didn’t even have a speaker – just a headphone jack.
The Walkman didn’t try to be a solution for everyone.
Sony had to choose to miss out on opportunities and to ignore certain market segments to make this innovative device called the Walkman.
The original Walkman wasn’t great at everything. For 1979 it was portable and personal, but:
It used non-rechargeable batteries that ran out quickly.
Cassette tapes tangle – can you still remember extracting feet of accordioned brown cassette tape from inside your Walkman?
The sound was good, but not nearly as good as our boomboxes or home audio systems.
There were not such thing as wireless headphones or earbuds. You had to wear over-the-ear headphones with a wire connecting them to the Walkman.
But the Walkman worked.
A core demographic of athletic people (walkers, aerobic exercisers, joggers) began using these innovative devices.
Soon, commuters and travellers were buying them.
The Walkman technology and quality kept getting better. They began to displace boomboxes. Over time, people began to transition from home stereos to personal listening devices.
The Walkman became ubiquitous. And its ubiquity also caused its obsolescence. Today, every personal device in market - phones, tracking devices like Fitbits, tablets – they all must include Walkman functionality. That innovation has become the industry norm.
But I don’t want to slide into that topic – that was my last blog post.
This is what I do want to highlight:
Innovation requires missing other opportunities to focus on one opportunity
Innovation is not for people pleasers. Innovation dies in environments that require all products and services work for everyone.
But there is a tension of truth. . .
Innovation is also financially unsustainable if its target market is too small or too unique.
This is the tension that each innovative company must balance.
My innovative product or service must focus on a specific target market. I must push aside the additional the opportunities I am forgoing. I must focus my product to keep it innovative.
At the same time, my innovation must be somewhat unfocussed so that it will tease or resonate with demographics surrounding my target market. I will need this wider demographic to transition this product or service from an innovation to a sustainable and profitable line of business.
So, what is your innovation?
What opportunities have you chosen to ignore to better focus that innovation?
In an age where ROI seems to be measured in minutes or months, are you willing or able to plant something in a smaller target market that may be a success in several years – or a decade?