Early Stage Innovation: What it’s like at the beginning
Everyone tries to copy innovation after the fact. But the key to innovation is understanding the beginning, not the end. [Work in Progress: Part 07]
Series: Work in Progress | Part: 7 of 10 | Reading Time: 7 mins
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This is the 7th part of the series Work in Progress. Last week, I talked about picking the right company stage (which generated a lot of comments!). This week, we stick with a similar theme around what it’s like in the Early Stage.
There’s a lot of talk about innovation. And from my seat, a lot of it is wrong. Or at least, it’s not what I experienced.
The problem is that when a majority of people encounter innovation, it’s way after the actual innovating occurred. They showed up to the party, after the party started getting going.
Investors show up after an idea is created and validated.
Employees arrive after the figuring out period is done.
The Media shares stories of innovations long after they are already successful.
Don’t get me wrong, all these fine folks are important (well, maybe). But they are innovation followers, not innovation leaders.
They think they understand innovation by looking at the end of it, but dismiss all the stuff that happened before they showed up.
I remember meeting a large company, where I walked step-by-step through our model. At one point, someone asked: “You’re telling us everything. Aren’t you worried we’ll do it ourselves?”
I simply responded: “good luck!”
In my experience, the key to understanding innovation is not copying it at the end, it’s understanding it at the beginning.
Innovating in the impossible
Privia Health was one of the first healthcare companies of its kind, innovating on a broad scale across an industry that repels new ideas.
Innovating in healthcare requires overcoming waves of complexity, regulatory barriers, risk aversion, and entrenched incentives that seem impossible to overcome.
Our industry likes to say: “Healthcare is hard.”
Back in 2013, I was part of the founding team who launched our flagship product, Privia Medical Group (not taking any credit for the original innovation, but I did help bring the innovation to life). Later, I led the launch of Privia Care Partners, one of Privia’s major new service lines.
And while most of my writing has been an ego stroking exercise where yours truly emerges as the hero, most of my perspective here comes from witnessing several unusually innovative people, including:
SVP, Strategy & Innovation: Graham Galka (another early colleague who pioneered most of our new products and services; now President of 10X Health)
General Counsel: Thomas Bartrum (if you hadn’t heard, lawyers are not typically considered innovative)
Chief Technology Officer: Chris Voigt
Founders: Jeff Butler and Dave Rothenberg
Experiencing and seeing the innovating, firsthand, gave me a view into what makes it work.
Unpopular and unobvious
▸ Innovation starts as unpopular.
It may become popular, but that comes later. At the beginning, innovation is a rejection against the popular thing. It’s a new, unfamiliar approach. The point is: if it were obvious and popular, it’d already be done! That’s the nature of innovation. You might think you are doing something cool, but most people just think you’re a weirdo.
▸ It’s only called “innovation” in retrospect.
It may take years to be appreciated as an innovation. And most new ideas never get there. For the innovator, many times it’s a question of: “how patient are you at waiting until your innovation works and/or is recognized?”
▸ Innovating is not embraced (by most).
The truth is that many people need to be escorted out of the building when new ideas are discussed. They are too pessimistic or short-term oriented. To them, innovation is something that is already successful (see above). You need to allow an idea to breathe before the doom-mongers bring you the list of “why this won’t work!”
▸ Innovation is not positive (to everyone).
To a lot of people, innovation is a really big negative. There will be blood. Something bad may happen to them, personally. We prefer to think about the “creative” side of “creative destruction.” You may experience more negativity than positivity from the outside. And if there’s no conflict, it’s likely not innovation.
▸ Innovation is not natural.
At least not in most organizations and with most people. In fact, it’s actively repelled. The excuses not to innovate will come from everywhere. And people are usually incentivized not to innovate. They are incentivized to keep the current thing going. So you must get outside the natural rhythms of established organizations and life.
The shape of a good idea
▸ Innovation is measured against current reality.
Great ideas can appear boring on the surface. It’s more about finding “what’s better than the alternative?” then “what’s something new and cool?” Boring, broken industries are filled with low hanging fruit for innovation. The ideas there may not look spicy, but they’re better than what exists today.
▸ Innovation is in the adjacent possible.
The thing one degree beyond what exists today. Just beyond immediate reach. Sometimes you can remix an existing idea, by putting a new spin on it. Or you take an idea from over there, and bring it here. If you innovate too far, even if you are ahead of your time, you may find that the innovation is too hard to grasp by anyone else.
▸ Innovation does not equal technology.
Don’t limit yourself. Sure, technology can spur innovation. But we weaken the potential of innovation when reserving it for only one mode of innovation. One of Privia’s best innovations was its legal model.
▸ Innovation does not come from competitive intel.
The quick death of a good idea is to check to see if anyone else did it. I guarantee you that someone else will be playing in a similar territory. So avoid other people's work until the end. Live with an idea yourself. Don’t load up your brain with their stuff, until you’ve unloaded all your creativity first. You might come to a new and fresh conclusion.
Extract a new angle
▸ Innovation inspiration can come from everywhere.
Innovative ideas come from having a different perspective, which comes from different inputs. If you follow the herd, you’ll come to the same conclusions as everyone else. So read widely (not just the trends). Develop an unusual skill or expertise. Follow your curiosity down rabbit holes. Be willing to be a weirdo.
▸ Know the customer.
Not just listening to the customer. Not just what they are saying, but what’s behind what they are saying. I like how the comedian Bill Hader puts it: “When people tell you something is wrong, they are usually right. When they tell you how to fix it, they are always wrong.” Customers will tell you their problems, but they won’t innovate a solution for you.
▸ Pull the thread on your unique angle.
If you notice that you are the only one looking at a problem a certain way, that’s a good clue you may be onto something. Innovation starts with a new lens on an old problem. And innovators have a willingness to pull the thread on this perspective to see where it takes them.
▸ Disassociate to innovate.
Our day-to-day busyness wards off innovation. You must find deep spaces of work because the best ideas unfold via flow states. When you are able to immerse yourself into a problem. Flow states are not found in to-do lists, process documents, or spreadsheets. Flow states can be achieved alone, but also shared in groups adept at bouncing ideas off one another. To innovate more, find more flow states.
Implementing Innovation
▸ Innovation doesn't appear, it unfolds.
Good ideas don’t appear in complete form. The spark may come at once (usually at a weird moment, by the way), but the bulk of an idea unfolds over time. You have to stick with it. Pound away on it. Work and rework it. Some ideas will die quickly. That’s fine, let them go. But some ideas will stay with you, you’ll keep thinking about them, and they’ll seem to appear everywhere around you.
▸ Innovation is nothing without implementation.
As the saying goes: “no idea survives first contact with the enemy.” Or second, or third, or fourth contact, in my experience. But rather than give up, you need to peel back the layers to find the kernels of success. What was the part that did work? What if we try it again, with a slightly different approach or different customer?
▸ Innovation requires an enormous act of sustained willpower.
Many people give up too early because it’s not an overnight success. So many infant ideas were killed (or neglected) before they got a chance to breathe. In my experience, you must wade through obscurity, for a long while until any success is achieved. You need a remarkable amount of commitment.
▸ Appreciate the innovating, more than the innovation.
Again, most people want to have the innovation, but don’t like doing the innovating. Thus, the people with comparative advantage love the period of innovating: playing with ideas, tinkering, and seeing where the ideas take them. That love is what enables them to see the innovation through.
Further Reading
What Do You Do With an Idea?, by Kobi Yamada (yes, a children’s book has more wisdom about innovation than most business books)
Creativity, Inc., by Ed Catmull
Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making, by Tony Fadell
The Creative Act, by Rick Rubin
Next up, I’m going to talk about staying outside the box, when everyone else tries to put you in one. This is something I’m all too familiar with…
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Note: views are my own and do not represent the views of any companies or people referenced within.
Truly excellent piece on innovation — the necessity of knowing the customer, the fact that innovation is frequently “adjacent” or taken in incremental steps, the fact that many find it threatening or unproductive. And above all, the fact that most of us view innovation only after it is completed.