One of my favorite things to do is to innovate – to come up with new and useful ways to help people get things done in their life and business – and then get paid in return for that innovation. But how does one go about finding these opportunities?
For me, it begins by taking a look at the important “jobs” people are trying to get done. By “important job”, I mean the set of tasks that must be done to achieve a critically-important “outcome” or necessary “result”.
By “trying to get done”, I mean the person (or company) must already be attempting to do, wanting to do or actually already doing the particular job. In other words, you won’t be very successful trying to convince, cajole or educate someone into taking on an additional job in order to create demand for your product or idea – they must already want to get that job done, and it must be important enough to prioritize highly (so money becomes available to pay for doing it).
This is where it’s really easy to get tripped up when innovating or looking for opportunities to innovate – “wishful thinking” about what people “should do” or “could do”. Chances are, if people aren’t already getting a particular job done in their life, you won’t be able to turn a profit trying to change their behavior. This is why so many good “ideas” turn out to be bad “products” – because people aren’t already trying to get the job done in their life or business; i.e., there’s no real “market” for such a product.
It’s often tempting to innovate in greenfield areas by inventing something that’s brand new. In today’s world, most everything that people NEED has already been invented – and people have it already, in one form or another. There are well-established markets for products and services that help people get jobs done. It’s far easier to enter an existing market with a new innovation than to both create a new market and introduce a new innovation/product concept (which is extremely risky, expensive and typically ill-advised).
Instead, it’s better to concentrate on existing, important jobs that people must get done (or wish they could get done); i.e., existing markets. To identify the breakthrough opportunities in the market, one must first truly understand the job(s) people want to get done and are getting done with what’s available today; i.e., the competitive alternatives.
Most products address getting the job done in some manner, but often have “side-effects” or “unintended consequences” that arise when using the product, which become a nuisance or create pain and dissatisfaction with the user. In these situations, finding ways to get the job done in a “better” way (i.e., without causing those side-effects or consequences) is one way to break into an existing market.
Of course, innovating along these lines assumes the side-effects and unintended consequences are sufficiently disturbing to cause the user to seriously consider changing products or taking a chance on a different approach. You cannot determine these things in a vacuum. You must talk with existing customers of these products to truly understand all the nuances involved in what these customers actually want, prefer and are willing to do to get what they want and prefer.
Now for an example. Let’s look at the Swiffer(tm) for a moment. The Swiffer was truly a remarkable, breakthrough product. It’s inventors understood their competition: the mop and bucket very well. They understood that users had to deal with two distinct, unintegrated components: the mop and the bucket with water in it. They also understood all of the “motions” the user had to go through to get the job done.
What’s the job to be done? Clean the floor.
What are the side-effects and unintended or undesired consequences of using the mop and pale?
- Bucket must be hauled over to a sink or water source (extra effort)
- Bucket must be filled with water (extra effort)
- Water can be easily spilled or slopped around, making an additional mess (unintended consequence)
- Mop must be wet in bucket, then squeezed out using the handle on the bucket (extra effort)
- If you squeeze too much water out, there’s not enough left in the mop to clean the floor (unintended consequence and extra effort to do over again)
- If you don’t get enough water out of the mop, then it’s too wet and just spreads the mess around (side-effect)
- It can easily take many cycles of mopping, cleaning the mop, squeezing out the water, etc. to complete the job
- After cleaning the floor, the mop must then be cleaned (extra effort)
- Finally, the bucket must be washed out and put away (extra effort)
Before the Swiffer, the mop and bucket were accepted norms – there wasn’t a better alternative to get that job done well. Then along comes the Swiffer. How does getting the same cleanup job look using the Swiffer?
- Just grab the Swiffer and make sure there’s cleaning solution in the bottle (if applicable)
- Check the “pad” and make sure it’s ready to go
- Start cleaning
- Push button (on some models) to dispense cleaning solution (or spray it on separately)
- Change the cleaning pad (toss old one out, put a new one one)
- Finish up and put the Swiffer away
Now, the main side-effects caused by the Swiffer is that it costs you money to replace the pads and the cleaning solution. This cost is a tradeoff vs. the “inconveniences”, consequences and side-effects of the mop and pale approach.
So which one is winning in the market today? While I do not have exact market share statistics to share with you here, I can tell you this. I haven’t seen a mop or pale in years (the government probably still uses them for all I know). The point is, the Swiffer completely changed how people get that cleaning job done, disrupting the mop as the primary tool for cleaning floors.
By truly understanding and then WRITING DOWN the steps involved in getting a particular job done, being careful to make note of all side-effects, consequences and inconveniences experienced while doing that job, one can usually identify the areas of opportunity.
THEN and ONLY THEN is it time to begin thinking about, tinkering about and designing a possible SOLUTION!
Unfortunately, many (most?) entrepreneurs and inventors do just the opposite. They have a “brilliant idea” and then they focus on the product and innovation, having completely missed the real opportunity – understanding the job to be done, how it’s being done today and focusing the innovation around resolving the pitfalls of the existing solutions.
Now, I am just as guilty of using this improper approach as anyone. It’s easy to get excited about a new idea and just dive right in to solving it; however, if you want to achieve massively profitable breakthroughs that really matter and make a difference, focus on the job first, and innovation second. I think you’ll be surprise at how much better it goes.
So, what’s your experience with innovation?
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RT @rickbraddy The Key to Discovering Breakthrough Opportunities http://bit.ly/aZMVR0
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