To start, I'd rather like to invent than innovate, this because Inventing has no limits to the imagination, risks are lower and there are many things under the inventor's control.
Making or designing new products-services is a big challenge, but the biggest challenge is the marketing of the new products.
Understanding the marketing problem of new products is clear why many new technologies are sleeping in libraries, patent files, universities, family memories and a many innovating entrepreneurs are dealing with social discredit and debt.
People who decide to innovate are almost always alone, one possible explanation for this is that innovation in practice involves taking many risks plus the high uncertainty environments where innovators are working.
Innovators are very special people , sometimes they come from a family of entrepreneurs, others because they had nothing to lose or they had no choice, there are others who simply do not want to deal with a boss. I must emphasize that not all people have the entrepreneurial/innovation spirit and it is a huge mistake try to find innovators in every person. We need to understand that each person can define his productive life by his unique way.
In recent decades innovation has been considered as a source of economic and social development of a country. Government and private entities have structured many business plan competitions to stimulate innovation.
Today exist many educational programs in colleges and universities for innovation, suggesting that the profile of the innovator-entrepreneur will become more professional and structured. This new knowledge will certainly help to solve the great innovation challenges and reduce the risk. However the most critical issue remains the same: Without sales and the lack of the proper management of resources no viable project is possible.
From my point of view innovation is defined as follows: Develop a new product / service, which will be most often desired by most people who want to pay the maximum cash for the innovation for a very long time. This would be heaven. Unfortunately this is not possible.
Let's start with the idea generation. The magical idea. This can come from anywhere, my experience says that a good model to find innovative and potentially suscessful ideas comes from the observation of the value exchange present in a market.
The vast majority of the value exchange process are opportunity areas that can be filled with new ideas. This method has been used for centuries by Syrian, Jews and Arabs salesmen among others for centuries.
An example: People from a country have a habit of eating certain foods, say corn tortillas. A tortillas lover would have to buy the corn, cook it and make them, which is a long, costly and time-consuming process and it is not related to the activities the person of our example do to earn money. (eg. works as a secretary).
The exchange value is: if you want to eat tortillas you should pay money for each ingredient and have to invest time, resources and effort in processing. That is, to meet your need should give something back. In this example, money and labor.
Some observers realize this need, and they make a plan to manufacture tortillas at the right price to sell to the secretary. At that point you have a potential business from an innovative idea.
Some people can focus on making and selling tortillas, other people might think about increasing market coverage making the tortilla more accessible to the consumer at home, others may sell at street carts stuffed meat, etc, etc, etc. And all are generating innovative ideas of potential viable businesses.
This is a classic example of the identification of a need from an exchange of value with areas of opportunity. In other words: How do I identify a need? How do I cover it? How to make money by covering the need?.
In short, we must learn to observe, listen and wear the shoes of others above all, it is a good way to have innovative ideas with market potential.
At this point I must confess that I will have serious problems with those rooted in ideas, which means: There are often innovators with a leading role of the self. Instead of the "Other" .... The imperative of "I", is and will be the best person to begin to fail within the complexity of innovation.
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