As a former intrapreneur and current professor and entrepreneur, I’ve made a number of observations about innovation that I’d like to share.
I was just meeting with a realtor – a friend of a friend – to offer some ideas about marketing her real estate services. I was asking her to tell me about what words or phrases she believes would resonate with her prospective customers. In other words, would her customers want a realtor that was risk …
Do you want an innovative realtor? I don’t! But, I’m grateful some people do! Read More »
As I’m listening to the Howard Stern “60th birthday show,” I can’t help but think that he might be one of the most disruptive innovators of the past 30 years. He’s probably the best interviewer of all time and has pushed the boundaries of nearly everything he’s touched. It has come at the cost of …
What can Howard Stern teach us about Innovation? Read More »
One of the common characteristics I’ve found in most successful innovators is a strong sense of curiosity. They are genuinely interested in deeply understanding customers, existing solutions, competition, etc. It is through this deep understanding that they often find new ways to look at problems, ways to bring ideas from other disciplines, ways to separate …
I recently got a dog – a very, very high energy and smart dog – a breed that is often a working dog. When we met with her foster parents ahead of adopting her – they said “she pulls a lot, barks at other dogs and is tough to walk on leash, but she is GREAT …
Perhaps the most frustrating part of building new products or innovating in general is that you’re almost never right when you start. No matter how much analysis you do before you start, how confident you are, you’re still almost always wrong about most things. Almost all great breakthrough products succeeded after they failed – often …
Celebrating failure – the catalyst for evolution Read More »
As a corporate entrepreneur, you should think of yourself first as an entrepreneur and next as an employee. As an entrepreneur, negotiate terms with your investors BEFORE you get started. It’s always too late once you start showing signs of success.
I’m a huge fan of Nassim Taleb – especially his Black Swan Trilogy (Fooled by Randomness, Black Swan and Antifragile). It struck me recently that perhaps the biggest obstacle I’ve had to face in selling ideas, obtaining funding and building new businesses is that the people around me don’t have skin in the game – …
Idea centric approach: Entrepreneur centric approach:
