Through the Lens of a Trailblazer*

Developing a solution for an existing problem through INNOVATION and CREATIVITY is the paramount way to acing it all and building brands that will outlive you. This has been my journey for the past year. Although achieving milestones and targets brings with it satisfaction, the problems that “trailblazers” face are in the teething stage and in most cases are a matter of life and death. However, from the little experience and exposure I have gained, I am certain of a few actualities and truths.

1. Finding an IDEA is EASY. CREATIVITY is usually the HARDEST challenge.

2. The GAP between an idea and a working prototype is HUGE. Thousands of brilliant minds have conceived brilliant ideas, but failed, despite years of dedicated effort, to successfully prototype them.

3. Even with a kick-ass prototype in hand you need RESOURCES to develop the prototype into a product. You will need PEOPLE to actualize it, even if it’s a friend who will let you live in their basement.

4. REPRODUCTION, making one of something is not the same as making thousands of it. UNDERSTAND that having an innovation and having an innovation than can be reproduced and be economically viable is not the same thing.

5. REACHING the customer; this has little to do with breakthrough thinking or a brilliant prototype. This challenge is about PERSUASION and not CREATION.

6. BEAT competitors; how you position, advertise, make partnerships, sign deals and distribute a product is complex, unpredictable, and has little to do with the quality of the idea being sold. Things get UGLY at this stage, remember Thomas Edison, in the war over electricity, tortured animals to convince the world that his DC current was safer than Westinghouse’s AC.

7. TIMING is the challenge that crushes innovator’s souls. A huge number of things can happen on any of your important day(s) that a) DECIDES your FATE and b) you have NO CONTROL over. TIMING impacts product launches, business deals, cost of goods, and dozens of other decisions innovators depend on to transform their business.

8. KEEP LIGHTS ON and LIVE. While you’re doing all of the above, someone has to LIVE, take care of other responsibilities and literary KEEP yourself running daily. The pressure of LIVING while doing all the above is immense and calls for the strongest soldiers. Those that are INDOMITABLE, QUIXOTIC and have GRIT.

To all my fans; Dream. Follow through. Thrive. I am cheering you up!!

*A person who makes a new track through wild country, an innovative leader in a field; a pioneer.