Guy Kawasaki made an interesting point at an innovation presentation I attended yesterday. He recognized that when building a business based on a new innovation it is vital to stay focused.
Innovators have many ideas for new products or services that could fit into many different markets and as a result, I believe, are not focused. However, to be successful one has to focus. Investors want to see a focused plan, employees need a clear target and customers need a clear message.
However, focus does not mean tunnel vision. Guy went on to say that, if a group of people are buying your product that, you as the innovator, did not think would buy it, do not ignore them because they are not in your focused market. Of course, "take the money; always take the money". But, more importantly, Guy advised that they should be understood. In fact, this market may be your future.
It is easy to have tunnel vision when you spend so much effort and time focusing on a given market. It becomes easy to "dismiss" other uses for a product/service as trivial as in "Our computer is for serious business people; not artists and musicians".
At the same time it is not always clear when a business should switch their focus for this "new" emerging market. Switch too early and it may be confusing for investors, employees and customers. Switch too late and the opportunity is gone. No matter what, a switch will cost--re-branding, new employees, alterations of the technology and so on.
Like many things the idea is simple enough to understand, moderately difficult to adopt, and extremely hard to execute.
Comments (1)
This a mircle for high school students. Most of us aren't even on youtube or facebook we usually are on sites that administratives feel aren't appropriate
Posted by Redd | February 19, 2008 9:21 AM
Posted on February 19, 2008 09:21