Business innovation and strategy
Characteristics and types of creative approaches
It took me several years, graduate an MBA and teaching several academic courses about innovation and creativity, to realize that not all people can see innovation the same way as I do. But, although it might sound arrogant, I do not mean it this way :)
Let me explain.
Often when people brainstorm for a new idea, whether it's for a startup or solving a problem in a product, we might encounter people who will say: “but we already tried that before”, or “that company is already doing it”.
It is true that coming up with a completely NEW idea can become a great differentiator for a business, both new and veteran. But having a new idea is not the ONLY way to innovate!
Whether your product is a game, e-commerce brand, or a physical product, you have competition from some direction. Your differentiation from competition can be defined in different ways. You do not need to be the ONLY seller of a specific product in order to be successful.
Best product is not the only way to succeed
We usually assume that having a perfect product guarantees a successful business. But that would be a mistake.
Video games are divided into genres, and new games usually follow a certain genre. Each genre is pretty much defining the game mechanics, and there is not a lot you can change inside it.
Sometimes, you could find games that actually copy a very successful game, like Temple Run or Candy Crush or Tetris (depending how old you are to know these games :) ). There are hundred of copies of these games, and some are also super successful!
So how can a game that very much copied an existing gameplay, become successful as well? Because it used a different business strategy.
Other ways of becoming successful
During my courses, I teach about 3 main ways to have a successful business: Sales strategy, Product performance, Product system.
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Sales strategy, also called monetisation mechanism in video games, is HOW you make money from your product. Do you give something for free and then take profit from ads, or do you take a monthly service fee, or do you charge a one time cost? all these ways and others will influence greatly who will be your target audience.
Product performance is how well your product works. If you do have the best product in your category, you do have a strong card in your deck.
Product system is when a certain product or group of products create a strong link between the user and that company, and makes it harder and harder to let go and move to another competitor product. We can see this with the giant tech companies: Microsoft, Google and Apple. Microsoft is a long standing company due to the fact that Windows and Office create a system between them. Apple is even better at this, since they offer content and applications dedicated to those who have their products.
Further Readings
Few weeks ago, I have encounter this wonderful short article by Jeff Desjardins, that supports my point, and even elaborates more about core types of business strategy. So if you are still interested, please check it out too.
Another related read is the Octalysis framework for gamification models by Yu-Kai Chou. This is my first go to model when I design or review a product. I have also discussed it in other previous articles. It can help explain the inner motivation of a person to follow certain strategies listed above.
Never block an idea
To sum up, creative thinking is a process that requires time. Innovation requires time. It is not always the first idea that comes to mind that will be the best solution to the problem. But, the skill of discovering that best solution can be improved, and solutions can be discovered faster. By practicing such strategies.
Circling back to the beginning of the article, when a person near you is trying to shoot down an idea, you should respond with: “lets try to figure out what innovative strategy the other competitor is using, and consider if we can use a different one.”
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