Monday, March 10, 2014

Pull or push?

I think there are 2 types of innovation - The pull, and the push.

Pull is more lean-startup. Look for the lowest hanging fruit, pluck it as fast as possible, and iterate. A consumer problem creates demand for a solution which pulls development of solution. Like Dropbox. And I think Amazon was pretty lean too.

Push, on the other hand is more like traditional research. Someone feels Solution X will benefit the world, builds it and pushes it into the market. Like Tesla, SpaceX.

There is a lot of focus on lean startups these days, but I think we need a balance of both. While pull innovation reduces risk and forces companies to start creating value quickly, we also need a healthy dose of wild swings and huge bets to keep shaking things up and push new ideas into the market.

After all, greedy algorithms don't always lead to the best solutions.

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