You don’t have to look very carefully to see the power of hot trending on technology stocks. Unicorns are plentiful now and, even if they disappear, are bound to reappear sometime in the future. You can always count on the herding instinct. This inertia can be a powerful leverage opportunity for anyone looking to commercialize new innovations. Remember these easy tips when you start to talk about your innovation or start to publish your key messages.
- Associate your innovation with a key social good or hot socially provocative trend. Everyone can relate to social movements in some way. Those movements that get a lot of media attention and draw the most “hits” give leveraged weight to your content. Blogging about quantum physics isn’t nearly as impactful as blogging about how quantum physics will change your child’s education.
- Build a value proposition that directly relates to making human’s lives better. Even in the most technically complicated markets benefits that get traction in the market are the ones that speak to positive human impact.
- Associate your innovation with other “hot” innovations. Seek to build an ecosystem of partners that find themselves in high awareness situations and market positions. They can have long tails of leverage that you can ride. In the early days of start-ups cash is king. Any leverage you can find will save desperately needed dollars otherwise spent on low return marketing outreach.
- Do NOT create your own unique marketing position in the beginning. Creating a unique word for your innovation and expecting the market to accept and internalize your word immediately is folly. Only if you have tons of cash to drive the new messaging should you even try. Disruption initially lives in the shadows of existing markets; take the beach head and then move inland.
- Most importantly, anticipate the next hot trends before others. Process and synthesize diverse trends that can lead to new hot ones. You are more likely to succeed by anticipating hot trends than creating one on your own. Trends happen from the market place and your innovation is a “consequence” of that innovation. Don’t fall into the trap of believing the Unicorns invented the trends; that is typically self-aggrandizement of the CEO.
Commercialization Blog Series: 10 Stage Process
Lots of academic research has been done on commercialization strategies and entrepreneurship. Peter Drucker seems to have started it all and was one of my heroes during my MBA life phase. Experience is a different teacher however. The act of working with 100’s of companies at various stages of commercial development has taught me a few practical things about getting traction in the marketplace. This blog series is a quick snap shot at some of those lessons learned and questions asked to help guide individuals and companies through the maze of decision making alternatives. Certainly it does not contain ALL the issues but, from my experience, taking these suggestions to heart will lead you to a greater probability of success than otherwise; certainly more likely than following academia into the abyss.
Post 6: 6 CRITICAL PRINCIPLES WHEN ENGAGING THOUGHT LEADERS ON YOUR INNOVATION
Post 5: GUIDING PRINCIPLES WHEN COMPARING YOUR INNOVATION AGAINST THE COMPETITION
Post 4: PUT YOURSELF IN FRONT OF THE TRAIN!- 5 KEY LESSONS IN GROWTH MARKET PLANNING
Post 3: SEEK MAXIMUM LEVERAGE (ANYWHERE)
Post 2: ASSESS INNOVATION CORE ATTRIBUTES
Post 1: EVALUATE COMPANY MATURITY
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