Do You Need An Idea For Innovation?
Svyatoslav Biryulin
Help CEOs scale fast & thrive by creating their own markets instead of competing in others | Crafting breakthrough strategies | Strategy consultant and board member. Guiding leaders to better strategic decisions.
There are lots of them around?us
Yesterday I had a flight to another country. It was delayed for three hours, which were not the most productive hours for me because working in a cramped lounge is not the same as working from home or in the office.
But minor troubles had begun even earlier. When I was about to leave for the airport, it turned out that there was ice on my car’s windows. So, I spent some time removing it with a scraper. Not a big deal, but this exercise didn’t amuse me much.
These are only two insignificant examples of the world’s imperfections. But we spend money, effort, and time on things that don’t give us pleasure or make us smarter or richer every day.
The world’s shortcomings
If you check in to a hotel, you will, most likely, get a key. So why can we use our smartphones to pay our bills in restaurants but can’t use them to open a door?
When your colleagues are late for an important meeting, and you’re on time, you waste your time waiting for them. Is there a way to make them all come on schedule?
If you buy a computer with a different operating system than the one on your previous one, you’ll spend hours transferring your data from one device to another.
I am a car-sharing service user. In my city, the company employs several electric car brands. And each of them requires its own combination of actions one needs to take to disconnect a car with a charger (to press and hold the “unlock” button, to find a special button inside the car, etc.).
I go to a local supermarket once in a while. And whatever I come, I have to stand in line for at least ten minutes or so. Of course, it is not that much, but this is a tiny part of my life stolen by the supermarket.
Most gyms won’t offer you to book a treadmill, though it could be attractive for many customers.
People throw away tons of spoiled or rotten food from their fridges or restaurants — food made or prepared to be eaten. At the same time, some people on our planet die of hunger.
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I like to look good, but I hate to waste time on getting my hair cut. Is there a way to speed up the process? And I have to visit the same hairdresser not because she is the best (even though she’s good), but because I can just sit down in her chair and say: “As usual, please. “
This article is not a list of my personal complaints. It is a small part of my collection of the world’s imperfections I have gathered for some years. You can build up your own because any flaw you find may become a business idea.
Flaws as business?ideas
Every time you stand in a line, pay for something you don’t need, do a job you hate (or see somebody else do it), or waste your time, it reveals the world’s imperfections. Unfortunately, there are lots of them.
But every universe’s blemish is a chance to eliminate it, to fix the world. So many great inventions emerged because their creators saw that the existing solutions were imperfect.
Percy Shaw, an English inventor and businessman, almost crashed while driving home from a pub on a foggy night in Yorkshire, England, in 1934. A tragedy didn’t happen only because his headlights were reflected in the eyes of a cat. It gave him an idea. He?invented?reflective studs for the road and called them “cat’s eyes.”
László Bíró, a Hungarian newspaper editor, was?frustrated?by the amount of time that he wasted filling up fountain pens and cleaning up smudged pages. Then, he noticed that inks used in newspaper printing dried quickly and without stains. So, he decided to create a pen using the same type of ink. With the help of his brother Gy?rgy, Bíró developed the ink formula and new ballpoint design.
Steve Jobs?didn’t like?the portable music players available on the market in the late 1990s. So, he decided to create the iPod.
A good business idea is not necessarily a game-changer. Instead, find a problem people have, embrace the entrepreneur’s mindset, and try to turn a problem into an opportunity.
So, if we keep our eyes open and urge our teams to notice and write down all the imperfections they can spot in their everyday life, you’ll find a brilliant idea sooner or later.