Innovative Creation: Building Transcendent Products in Art and Business

As a self-proclaimed creative person, I have found a simple mission to follow on a daily basis: create things people enjoy. Working towards this ideal brings me energy while avoiding it drains me. As someone that works in product development during the day and as a hobbyist writer by night, I have found myself contemplating what it takes to create things people enjoy. Interestingly enough, the creation process looks similar for both business and art.

If you wish for your work to be swirled and savored like a fine wine rather than shot with a grimace like warm tequila, your product must fulfill a desire or unmet need for your constituents. In both art and business, a similar game is played if the creators want their consumers to enjoy the experience associated with their product; however, nuance exists. The key difference in the game is that businesses compete for money while artists compete for attention. Many artists would recoil at this statement with claims that they create solely for themselves, yet they publicly share and promote their work. Clearly there is some motive to create for others’ enjoyment; otherwise their work would be created, filed in a drawer, and kept inaccessible to anyone but the creator through biometric encryption. For those rare souls that employ such security measures to create for themselves and themselves alone, this essay does not apply since they play an entirely different game.

The creation of any product, be it artistic or pragmatic, follows the same high level process. We begin by identifying a problem to solve. For the artist, this can range from the simple “The world needs more beauty” to a more specific “The world needs more Kafkaesque romance novels set in idyllic English villages by the sea.” Perhaps our business-minded colleague intends to help busy people organize their personal finances in an age where smartphone wallpapers fade into obscurity due to an overcrowding of apps, or maybe he wants to provide honest landscaping services in a town where few landscapers pride themselves in delivering with quality. As we’ll discuss later, a creator can spend as little or as much time as they desire in this problem space.?

After sufficiently understanding the problem to be solved, the creator begins the fun work: ideating and perfecting the solution. For a business or artist with a physical product, this seems pretty straightforward - the idea moves from someone’s brain, to a drawing, to a prototype, to a product. This solution space almost always includes a period of iterating on the product before revealing it to the public. Businesses that deliver a service as their product differ by creating and optimizing a process rather than a tangible object.

When the creator believes they have a winning product that meets the needs of the consumer, they begin their launch prep activities. This largely differs depending on the industry and marketing strategy. For SaaS companies with an existing customer base, launch prep can be as simple as the few clicks needed to ship the code into production. For new products, this may involve a marketing campaign to drum up excitement and the hiring and training of a new sales force. The artist may have a social media campaign or sign up for an art exhibit to debut their product. For the simple artist that I am, my launch prep process only involves the activities needed to ship my essays to Substack.

Although not depicted in the image below, the best products and services have a feedback loop between the post-launch customer feedback and developers, enabling the creator to iterate and perfect their product even further.

This path can lead to several outcomes, but we will simplify into two product categories: Sure Bets & Moon Shots. Successful Sure Bets leave customers feeling satisfied about the product while Moon Shots offer an awe-striking feeling of pleasant surprise about the product. There are three key considerations when entering this process that highly influence whether the outcome is a Sure Bet or a Moon Shot:

1. The strategic direction of the creator
2. Time spent in the Problem Space
3. The types of solutions the creator would pursue

1) Strategic direction of the creator

The strategic direction aims to answer which kinds of problems the creator will study. This involves some level of self-reflection and can depend on what the creator is good at, what interests them, what their existing product serves, market trends, and any other limiting factors (e.g. an artist who is time-constrained by a busy 9-5 job and school-aged children).

A creator can spend as much or as little time as they want reflecting on their strategy. Too much time and you reserve no time for execution. Too little time and you miss your end goal of revenue or attention by spreading yourself in too many directions. The latter is an especially dangerous trap for creatives since they tend to be highly curious, and thus, highly susceptible to shiny object syndrome. The sweet spot provides enough clarity to retain focus so creators can maximize their throughput, thereby increasing the efficiency of meeting their goal rather than debating strategy when they should be executing. The strategic direction is expected to evolve over time, hence many businesses have quarterly or annual reviews to update their strategy while artists prioritize quiet time or leisure activities where spontaneous self-reflection can occur.

Developing a strategy can be more challenging for artists since their product addresses intangible needs such as the desire for entertainment, contemplation, or most commonly, experiencing certain emotions. Oftentimes, this desire to feel begins within the artist and bleeds into their work. It can take years for an artist to uncover this ‘why’ behind their work while they devote decades to build the skills necessary to articulate emotion and bring life to a lifeless medium. We will later discuss how this strategy influences whether the artist’s product will be a Sure Bet or Moon Shot.

By having a strategy, we now have a frame of reference to operate within and we can more clearly define what Sure Bets and Moon Shots specifically look like for us. We know the boldness of the problems we will solve and generally how we will solve them based on what we are good at. Solving bolder problems - or those that have a greater impact on our consumers - tends to lead us towards Moon Shot products while solving less impactful problems tends to result in Sure Bets.

2) Time spent in problem space

Now that we know what generic problems we wish to solve for our consumers, we can determine how much time and money a creator will spend studying a problem. Time spent in the problem space does not determine whether the chosen path is a Sure Bet or a Moon Shot, but if too little time is spent here, the resultant product will never be a Moon Shot. Those that lock themselves into the Sure Bet path do so by listening to their customers and executing on their wishes. In other words, it is a rapid and reactive approach to product development and art. This shortened approach looks like the difference between the iPhone 12 & 13 hardware, the blogger who routinely asks his audience what they’d like him to write about and delivers on it exceptionally (i.e. listicles), a book on atomizing your habits, or yet another formulaic Star Wars trilogy. The Sure Bet path is a low risk way to manufacture cash or attention in the short term because you give your customers what they asked for in a hurry.?

Many companies spend little time studying a problem since they are eager to release a new product that stabilizes or grows the business. They tend to perceive the problem space as an obstacle or box to check before going through the real work: developing and launching the product. However, the risks to this mindset are numerous: you risk designing the wrong product, delaying your development cycle, and disruption from your competitors. By overlooking the problem space, you may address the needs of a small subset of customers while neglecting all of your customer’s needs, leading you astray in the product you develop. If the needs of the new product aren’t specific enough, this can lead to debate around the problem you are trying to solve in the middle of development, or worse, it can be an unspoken obstacle when trying to decide on the path of the design. Such scenarios lead to cyclical conversations that delay the development of the product. Just like how at the beginning of any project, it is valuable to create a plan before executing on it, it is valuable to clearly understand a problem before solving for it. You start slow to go faster later.

Thirdly, by addressing what the customer asks for rather than the underlying factors driving their requests, you fail to open yourself up to new ways of thinking - new ways of thinking that your competitors may employ. A transformational new way to travel from point A to point B disrupted people focused on breeding faster horses just like how flip phones were displaced by someone who looked at phones through an entirely different lens. In the games of money and attention, this risk of disruption looks like bankruptcy for our business owner and obscurity for our artist. Unless our business owner or artist places some bets on a product that transcends the current paradigm, bankruptcy and obscurity are their inevitable destinies. Rather than a question of if, it is a question of when.

The company that creates new markets through product superiority and the genre-defining artist approached the problem space from an entirely lens by ignoring what the customers asked for: they managed to scratch an itch the consumer didn’t even know they had. Those that excel in Moon Shots follow in the footsteps of Steve Jobs:

“Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.” - Steve Jobs

To develop Moon Shots, you must understand the root of the consumer’s problems so well that you can articulate them better than they could, creating a proactive visionary approach to product development. More time in the problem space carries its own risks as well because an infinite amount of time can be spent doing research, mapping out problem statements, and performing five why analyses on customer desires. The risk with extended time in the problem space is the unending swirl of research that never yields a solution, hence leaving progress toward the company or artist’s mission stagnant.

All of this is to say that truly transcendent products tend to result from the resolution of covert needs. Artists tend to address one or a combination of two major desires: for contemplation or feeling. These desires have varying levels of visibility in the consumer. Within the desire to feel, you have the most overt customer desire - to be entertained - and since the desire to be entertained isn’t exactly esoteric, entertaining art tends to fall into the Sure Bets category that eventually ripens into obscurity. Even entertaining works of fiction that endured the test of time usually carry some Trojan Horse message that stirs the flames of contemplation and further emotions. Within individuals, there are exceptions: perhaps a silly film remains evergreen in your heart because it reminds you of an emotional time in your life. Such exceptions do not negate the observation that most transcendent art stirs unexpected yet desirable contemplation or emotion in the majority of individuals.

If I were to put these major desires on a spectrum of likelihood for artistic transcendence or Moon Shots, it would look like this:

This phenomenon is largely supply driven: entertainment can be fulfilled through significantly more activities than consuming a niche piece of art, while less activities can fulfill a desire for contemplation, and even less scratch specific emotional itches. In the words of product development, art that fulfills niche desires is differentiated and less likely to be replaced while those that compete with anything and everything are more likely to go bust over time.

Since the Sure Bet addresses the overt desire to be entertained or explicit asks to contemplate certain topics, Moon Shots have the intent to stir unexpected yet desirable thoughts and feelings.

In practice, the problem space looks a bit more like an inspiration space for our artist. These are the activities an artist engages in to find the muse for their next project: which specific topic or emotion should they articulate. For the writer, this may involve reading a classic or enjoying an engaging conversation. For the painter, this may look like a visit to the museum or a stroll in the park. For the filmmaker, this could be attendance at a film festival or the movie theater. The problem space can take many forms for the artist, but it follows the same function: observation of the outside world to find the artist’s next project, whether that’s portraying something entertaining, thought-provoking, or emotional. Many times the problem space involves discovering a hidden desire within the creator himself so he can express it for the outside world to experience.

3) The types of solutions the creator would pursue

Once the artist and business have identified the problem they wish to solve, they can address it in many different ways. The solution they choose is based on obvious questions like: Will this fulfill the customers’ needs and is it feasible to create this? It also requires a look back at the strategic direction of the creator: Do we have the capabilities to do this? Does this solution align with our long term goals? Does it complement or cannibalize our existing products / body of work? The business may not pursue a solution if they lack the in-house capabilities to develop the product just like how an artist may wait to pursue writing his magnum opus novel until he’s notched a few more short stories or novellas under his belt.

If the strategy involves an attempt to dramatically grow in a short period of time, the creator may be willing to take a greater risk on a potentially disruptive solution or Moon Shot. Of course, there are ways to mitigate the risks associated with a Moon Shot - primarily through the collection of feedback from experiments and customers early in the development process. A business can sign a few key customers to NDAs and request feedback while an artist may serialize their novel as a newsletter before printing it.

Artists and businesses interested in growth should consider where each potential solution fits within a project portfolio that balances both approaches. The appropriate balance depends on strategy and risk tolerance: a startup may be more focused on transcendence rather than giving the customers what they asked for, while a large corporation responsible for pleasing investors in search of stable earnings may stick with Sure Bets organically before purchasing the startup once it becomes more mature.?

Artists don’t have the option to purchase their competition since their product is intangible, so their strategy should generally revolve around an attempt at creating a transcendent Moon Shot lest he becomes a circus act that perpetually asks his audience “How high?” when they tell him to jump. For the artist, Sure Bet activities become supplementary to his path to transcendence, or a means to the end rather than the end itself. Unless explicitly focusing on a new area, a large established business should generally employ an opposing balance: focus on iterating its core product offering to remain competitive while supplementing with experimental Moon Shots. This is especially true if they keep the M&A ace up their sleeve. If an established company ignores its core business for Moon Shots, it loses its competitive edge just like an artist overly focused on Sure Bets eventually loses his soul. While we make generalizations here, neither artist nor business should not lose sight of their strategy.?

Conclusions

Any creator in the pursuit of growth has the option to build a Sure Bet or a Moon Shot. No path is inherently superior to the other as this depends on the business or artist’s strategy and their portfolio of existing projects; however, most of us create in the hopes of building something transcendent someday.

Those that pursue the transcendent Moon Shot share the same goal: paint a vision of the future that fulfills a need in a novel way. By strategizing towards high impact problems, prioritizing time in the problem space, and wisely accepting risk; creators position themselves well to transcend the current paradigm. What appears to the outsider as a spontaneous development is the result of a laborious purpose-driven process.

Sure Bets can be the result of this same purpose-driven process by strategically focusing on less impactful problems since they tend to be quickly understood and solved. On the other hand, Sure Bets or even failed products can escape despite an intent to shoot for the moon if the strategy is unclear, the problem is insufficiently understood, or if the solution does not play to the creator’s strengths.?

In conclusion, there are several paths to creating transcendent or incrementally better products and neither approach is inherently superior in isolation. Their merit can only be judged within the context of a greater portfolio of products. Whether an artistic or pragmatic creator, I leave you with a few questions:

1. What is your current strategy for creation?
2. How are you balancing between time in problem/inspiration space and solution/creation space?
3. How does your current project tie back to your overarching strategy?