Innovation does not start from thinking: “this is a great business opportunity, how do we cash in”. That does not work so well.
Real innovation starts from “this is a serious problem and existing solutions suck! How can we solve this problem in an elegant way?”
One approach focuses on the business opportunity, while the other is focused on the problem-solving end of things. The challenge with only seeing the business opportunity and not the problem solving opportunity is that it will eventually lead you to make really bad decisions.
A company had the option of buying the Google search technology very early on, but they passed the offer because they felt the technology was too good! Therefore, if they bought it, it would not allow people to come back to their website since they already found what they were looking for.
Money is a reward for solving problems.
People who solve real problems seldom go broke.
Real innovation always starts with somebody somewhere trying to solve a problem.
