Innovation is easy! read this

Innovationby definition in wikipedia is “the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services.” Innovation has myths, people find it something from the other world, kids are keeping themselves far from this word but our country needs this more than ever.

In this era of technology and ever-changing global scenario, the companies and startups are banking upon the innovation heavily to edge past the competition be in product, services of techniques. Innovation helps you go past the competition at often changes the entire course of the game, create entirely new product that is disruptive and can even cause a complete wipeout of an entire industry, as we saw in case of mobile phones having a tiny in-built camera, offered just as a feature, almost killed a giant like Kodak.

Innovation is creativity; implemented.

The difference between creativity and innovation is that innovation involves the implementation part of the creative idea because mere an idea has no value whatsoever, it is the execution that gives value to the idea and thereby create something new, to be termed as innovation.

Today’s innovation is tomorrow’s tradition — Lidia Bastianich

Innovation brings about a change in the existing, the opponents of change often get scared with the disruptive ideas and treat a creative mind as insane, they wont listen in the beginning but eventually they will surrender and accept the change for their own survival. Very well put by Steve Jobs “Innovation is the ability to see the change as an opportunity, not a threat”

Executing your ideas brings about the much needed change.

As we discussed in our last post about techniques to start generating more and more business ideas, we talked about the execution part that is most important. If you have thought something, that is interesting, you already vet it with your friends, then with experts and also talked to a few prospective customers about your idea, it is time to start pushing it to execution. You may need support in terms of setting up your team, talk to more people interested in your idea, create a value for them in your project, make your team.

Two is a company.

Initially it was only you, now you have a partner, discussion would be more fruitful and well directed, the idea flow for execution would be more channelized and your energies spent in the direction of building a business. At this time your next step is to 

Set your goal and its roadmap: Filter your idea again and again to find the right spot to work on, start small, focus on the single problem at a time, work out the timelines and schedules for work and check the available and needed funds flow.

Move ahead and draw a business model and talk to your customers.

Now your small team meeting almost daily on a fixed schedule, having devoted your time and resources for the single, most important event of your life, your business launch, the first 

step towards that is to sketch a business model. The assumption map is to be created, the customer and value preposition are to be clearly defined. At this stage you need to go out and start talking to your customer about your offering and note down their responses. 

Time for MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

Once you set the expectations and already get the customers feedback on your offering, you can now start putting your hard earned money, for the first time, into developing your MVP, this is normally the first stage in lean startup model where you need to start spending collectively from the corpus your small team of co-founders have created for this dream. The MVP is to be a notch above the existing bad but a leap ahead of the existing good.

Reality check

Once you are ready with your MVP, you need to refill your energies because you are going to face the market for the first time with real product or service and this time you are going to face the real customers for real feedback. The initial feedback at this juncture are the most critical ones and are to be followed very religiously to be incorporated in the next versions, these feedback can decide the future of your offering. The market response will define is you are well in time, late or worst case, ahead of time, yes, ahead is the worst because the mental makeup of the customer is still that old and to change the mindset and convince them to try your offering needs fortune to be spent in creating awareness and for a lean startup like yours it wont be feasible.

Fortunately if all goes well, you can now term yourself as market ready and can go out for the fiirst round of funding from the angels to setup your unit and start market in a small area.

Setup yourself professionally

At this point you can define your company, the policies, the functional areas, start hiring for a few key positions and define the operations and management. Work out well the funds requirements, your big moves, and align the funds well in tune with the big moves. Set up your accounting modules and start keeping track of everything that is happening within the organization.

Your idea is working!