What Makes a New Business Idea Great? — Timing
Have you ever wondered why some groundbreaking ideas fail while others take off and change the world?
This could be an idea for a new startup, a new product, or an innovative new business model inside a large company. Often, we think it’s the qualities of the idea itself that matter, but in reality, it’s the extrinsic factors that either make a good idea great or a great idea an utter failure.
There are several extrinsic factors that imbue an idea with true greatness. Let’s tackle them one at a time, starting with timing.
Timing
Great ideas piggyback off major market shifts, whether they are new technologies, consumer trends, or regulatory changes. The key is spotting these shifts early and anticipating the opportunities they present.
Mike Maples Jr., Founding Partner at Floodgate Fund, calls these critical moments inflections — external events that create the potential for radical change in how people think, feel, and act.
Successful startups are created through these inflections, meaning they need to be launched at just the right time to ride the disruptive wave. If you are too early, the technology isn’t ready, nor is the market. If you are too late, others are already riding the wave, and catching up is nearly impossible.
To take advantage of these inflections in history, I believe there are three key skills to develop:
1) Live in the Future:
To spot emerging inflections, work in a field where change is happening, at a company that pushes the edge of that field, and ideally with visionaries already looking two steps ahead. Your environment dictates how much you are learning and experimenting with the future. Start by putting yourself in the right place.
2) Spot Weak Signals:
Weak signals are early indicators or subtle hints of potential future trends, disruptions, or opportunities that are not yet fully recognized. Even if you are in a cutting-edge field with cutting-edge people, you need to piece together emerging trends and understand them before others do.
3) Develop Second Order Thinking:
This mental process goes beyond immediate and obvious consequences to consider longer-term and less apparent effects. From an innovation perspective, it involves anticipating the ripple effects and unintended consequences of these emerging inflections, specifically what new business opportunities will arise as technology, trends, and regulations evolve.
Take a moment to reflect: What emerging trends are you poised to leverage with your next big idea? The right timing could be the difference between your idea changing the world or fading into obscurity.
Make Innovation Work
Core Strateji is a strategy consulting firm that specializes in supporting leading companies to transform into ambidextrous organizations. Are you ready to move your innovation activities forward?
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