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I think one of the main reasons I've failed to innovate inside a large company, while succeeding at building new things at startups, is because I find it so har
by tsunamifury 11y ago
I think one of the main reasons I've failed to innovate inside a large company, while succeeding at building new things at startups, is because I find it so hard to maintain a positive attitude inside a corporate environment. However, at a startup, when I'm starving, I find optimism in everything and build nonstop.
So far this is a bit of a horrifying conundrum where I am a technical startup failure, but in good spirits or a corporate success and in bad mood all the time.
I've found when I'm at a startup there is enormous willingness to believe that my crazy ideas might create an opportunity -- likely because C-suite has nothing to lose and everything to gain. While I'm in a corp environment at the top of the market, VP's have everything to lose and very little they can imagine that can get better (other than competitive catchup scenarios).
This leads to a really deadly cycle, where large companies shun real innovation because of the perceived risk being 100,000,000x higher than at a startup since one has 0 to lose, and the other has billions.
The net-net result here is that big corps never end up being first movers, since they need to see opportunity illustrated by a competitor before they move on it. This sets up the corp team for failure though, as they are assigned to catch up to a competitor already established and building a product on a good foundation and likely years ahead in thinking.
- RankingMember 11y agoWould you say that, for this reason, large companies should maintain small insulated "Google X"-style incubation divisions to attempt to get the best of both worlds (stability of the big company with the risk-taking of the small)?
- TheOtherHobbes 11y agoThere has to be someone, or some group, to translate crazy cool ideas into viable products that match a market need. Ideas and inventions on their own are not enough. I know plenty of corps have a skunkworks R&D division. But - with the possible exception of Steve Jobs - I've never seen an equivalent elite skunkinnovation marketing division which exists solely to turn brilliant original ideas into brilliant marketable products for new customer groups.
- eloisant 11y agoSome do, but they still have difficulties to incorporate those "incubation divisions" ideas and benefit from the innovation.
- tsunamifury 11y agoI think creating separate quasi-elite innovation groups ruins the spirit of innovation for the overall corp culture. It should be emphasized that everyone has "Google X"-like responsibility, and managers especially need to be trained to listen, accept, and support suggested projects by their reports.
- huac 11y agoThe goal generally is to split the company into "exploitation" and "exploration" divisions, as in the types of innovations that the divisions pursue. So, the traditional group still innovates, but focuses on product or incremental innovations. The 'innovation group' then is one that has free rein to pursue 'radical innovations.' In general - exploitation requires homogeneity and consensus, while exploration benefits from heterogeneity and episodes of conflict. This still focuses everyone on innovative effort, but if management can identify how people fit in / which kinds of innovations they can do best, then this 'ambidexterous' organizational structure can work well. Additionally, the 'elite' language is pretty bad - you're right, we should encourage everyone to innovate, and should encourage incremental improvements, which certainly have great value as well. It's easier to see the value of a radical innovation, but also the risk as well.
- derefr 11y agoI would argue that everyone wants to be in the "innovation group"—it's where all the challenge is, it's where all the stuff that looks good on their resume is, and it's just plain inherently more interesting subject matter—and that those who end up "exploiting" rather than "exploring" feel like they've lost out because of this. Plus, R&D engineers frequently have less oversight and better pay. The real problem is that the decision-process for who ends up in R&D—and who ends up handling dumb production bugs their whole life—looks more like the military officer/enlisted split than like a single career track. We have extremely talented, extremely experienced engineers who are 20-year "Non-Commissioned Officers", still stuck in the bullpen, while some of the newbies mysteriously end up fluttering away to be Ensigns.
- ferentchak 11y ago
- orthoganol 11y agoI think the large majority of startups are still in the same paradigm of "sane, good ideas", with founders who are perfectly normal, just smart and usually very optimistic. All of that doesn't qualify as "crazy" as Steve Blank means it, as I read it. But true, crazy visionaries with ideas that most dismiss can build startups (extremely high potential ones), though I can't think of very many that fit that criteria, in part because by dentition (being crazy - in a good way here) has to be very rare.
- paulddraper 11y agoSlack's founder said something along the lines of "The only unusual thing about me is a slightly better then average ability to predict what people's reaction will be."
- derefr 11y agoWhat're a few good examples of "true, crazy visionaries"? The only ones I can think of were academics: Ted Nelson with Project Xanadu, Douglas Engelbart with his Mother of All Demos, etc. You could say Jobs and Wozniak had to be "true, crazy visionaries" to implement Xerox PARC's research in the form of a relatively-cheap desktop microcomputer, but I don't think that's quite right; seeing the potential in a working prototype is a lot easier than having the vision required to build that prototype in the first place.
- kooshball 11y agosteve blank has another article that covers this pretty well. http://steveblank.com/2015/03/11/fear-of-failure-and-lack-of-speed-in-a-large-corporation/ http://steveblank.com/2015/03/11/fear-of-failure-and-lack-of...
- ap22213 11y agoStartups are cool because there are fewer people who get in the way. And, at larger companies, they actually pay people to get in the way.