Disruptive Innovation: The Art of Attacking Problem Indirectly
Sustaining innovation can be achieved by solving the problem directly,i.e. improving current features, applying a solution to problem, while disruptive innovation seldom takes the same course.
Startup founders, product managers, and companies are keen to new ideas. New ideas nurture new products, new user experience, new processes, new markets, new customers, and so on. All those lead to new business. It is, however, very hard to come up new ideas, especially the really innovative ones.
In the past few years, I have worked in startups and in big companies, domestically and internationally. I have had the chance of being an advisor for a startup CEO and led growth efforts for that startup. I have worked on successful products, and on failed products. Based on my experience and observation, I find that truly innovative ideas are usually not innovative at the beginning. Innovative ideas are not at all the direct solutions for problems they want to solve. Instead, they grow from ideas for other problems. In another word, they attack problems indirectly.
Industries are full of examples like that. Want to build an online Ads platform? The solution is not to build an Ads platform, but to build something that millions of users use, such as news aggregator, games, search engine. Want to build a mobile app store? The best way is not to build a store directly, but to build, for example, a mobile browser or a mobile security tool, and then grow from there.(unless you’re Google, or Microsoft, you can build it directly) Clean master by Liebao Mobile is a good example. Want to build a local commerce platform? Build a review site first, such as Yelp, Dianping.
My personal experience tells me the same thing. Last year, I help my friend founded his startup — a company that allows users to order smartphone repair service online and have their phones fixed at lowest cost anytime and anywhere they want. The vision is very compelling. We call it “Uber For Fixing Your Phone”. I advised him on business strategies, marketing and user growth. After burning $200k in five months, the startup still couldn’t get serious traction. We attack the problem directly. We built a website and a mobile app that allow users to book a service. The problem of that method is phone repairing is quite a infrequent need by user. Beside, once the phone is fixed, users leave your product and it is very very hard to convince them to use the product again or recommend their friends to use. A better solution could be building something else that users would use more frequently. For example, we can build a smartphone review site, or an app that focuses on teaching people tips of using their phones, or a site that helps users to compare different phone models. Once that service get tractions, we can add a phone repairing service to current product.
I think there are at least three benefits of attacking problems indirectly when doing innovation.
(1) It helps you iterate quickly and lower the cost. Attacking problems indirectly often means starting small. If you start small, you can change the course quickly and also, you can keep the cost low. Many startups die because of running out cash. Many new initiatives inside company die because of big investment and low return.
(2) It helps you be right more often. Solutions are usually(if not always) not obvious at the beginning. And more often than not, your direct solution to the problem is wrong. Only after several iteration or pivots, you find the real solutions. So don’t be too excited that you have a great idea. It’s not that great. Let the vision drive where you go, but try some solutions around the outer circle of the problems, then get closer to the inner circle.
(3)It helps you dominate a niche market quickly. If you can think of a solution, somebody else can, either. This means a lot of competition if you attack the problems directly. Starting from somewhere else helps you avoid competition. If your product is successful, you can quickly dominate a niche market and grow from there. I think few people believed at the time that Airbnb would grow so big and take on the hotel industry. After all, they are just college kids who rent out their airbed in the kitchen.
Buy why founders, product managers and companies tend to attack problems directly? I think there are probably two reason.
(1) We tend to mistakenly equal thinking big with starting big. Starting indirectly ( often starting small) just sounds unambitious. If you are a product manager in a big company, proposing building a mobile app store is far more ambitious and exciting than proposing building a smartphone cleaning app.You’re more likely to get project approval and funding. With an app store, you control distribution, you make money by receiving part of revenue of any app sales, and you will have a platform that millions of users visit everyday. A cleaning app, however, seems so small and trivial that no solid business cases can be build upon it. But we know the story, cleaning app wins in the end.
(2)Most people at bad at evaluating ideas. Truly innovative ideas are good ideas but look bad. For example, Airbnb — renting your bedroom to someone else; Facebook — a website for college students; Xiaomi — a low cost but high-end configuration android phone; ele.me(饿了么) — a food delivery service for college students who are avid Dota players and don’t want to spend time buying lunch. All those ideas look bad.They have great vision but attack problems indirectly. They sound counter intuitive. Most people would reject them when asked to evaluate. But attacking problems directly sounds intuitive, and people feel comfortable accepting them.
So a few final words for people who want to innovate. Focus on user’s problems, not on new ideas. Don’t feel too excited about a solution that seems directly solve the problem. As a rule of thumb, if everyone thinks it’s a breakthrough idea, it’s probably not, so keep looking.
