Disruptive Innovation Part 2

0:00 Welcome to Episode 2 of our Disruptive Innovation Podcast Series. And today we're going to talk about how to spot those game-changing ideas. Sometimes you get into podcasts, I'm not going to tell you exactly what to do, or maybe they'll skip how to do it, or maybe they'll skip some feature. But today, I'm going to focus exclusively on how you can come up with those disruptive innovations. If you missed yesterday's podcast, go ahead and jump back to that podcast. It's available for you on all podcast platforms, YouTube, Spotify, etc. And if you haven't already, go ahead, hit the bell, like, subscribe, and then comment. If you find anything in this innovative series, mini podcast series helpful, let me know.

1:03 This episode is all about idea generation and opportunity recognition for would-be disruptors. We'll explore where disruptive ideas come from, how to identify pain points and unmet needs in your market, and the importance of looking at the world through a different lens. By the end, you'll have some concrete strategies and inspiring examples to help you discover your own game-changing ideas. Remember, every industry has opportunities for disruption, sometimes hidden in plain sight. Let's learn how to spot them.

2:05 Disruptors often emerge by solving a problem that established businesses have ignored.

3:07 A global disruptor in hospitality, with millions of listings in over 200 countries. Airbnb rise came from addressing a two-sided problem. Travelers wanted cheaper, authentic lodging options, and homeowners had unused space. The hotel industry had long overlooked these segments. But Airbnb unlocked an enormous new market by solving a problem in a new way.

4:09 And you have to get an interface. And you have to get all of these complicated steps. So there are a lot of innovations in that industry. For instance, there's a lot of software like Descript that's designed to help people with podcast video-like content or long-form content be able to edit video like it's editing a word document. Or captions, which solves the problem of once you've filmed a material, how do I take a long form and cut it up? Well, captions app, literally called the captions app, takes it apart for you. Or you can use any of those apps that make captioning or what we call burn-in captions an easier experience, especially animations.

5:11 Well, now, with the advent of AI and the advent of people embracing more neural network computations, you're able to have access to what would literally be an entire industry of professionals in less than 500 bucks. Trust me, I know.

6:12 Maybe you'll notice customers of a certain product are frustrated by its complexity. Maybe you're frustrated by something and you note that other people are frustrated by the same thing. Can you offer a simpler, more user-friendly alternative? Maybe a service is too expensive for many people. Could you provide a more affordable model? Perhaps leveraging technology to cut costs.

7:14 Well, the Universe platform that I've been building is designed because it's designed to answer my clients' problems. Many of my clients used to use WordPress. Some of them used to use Shopify. And still use Shopify as the back end.

8:15 An application can die. An application can die. A service can go offline.

9:17 And you can't seem to get this interconnectivity for the customer's experience. Well, I've built a platform and I've been working on it and I'm very, very excited to launch it in the next couple of weeks or months to just be able to share it publicly as other clients have benefited from this.

10:19 Because I've worked with companies and who have got stuck in their ways and were unable to meet customer demand because they just didn't want to do things a certain way or just didn't feel what their customers felt and couldn't make that connection.

11:23 For example, a giant corporation might focus on its most profitable customer segment, leaving entry-level or budget-conscious customers underserved. In opening for a nimble disruptor to swoop in with a no-frills-affordable option, look where others aren't looking. If everyone in your industry chases the same big fish clients, consider targeting a different segment.

12:24 If you're not serving your customers and your customers aren't resonating with your vision, your values, and your purpose, you're going to find a huge disconnection. Remember, we talked about that why. If your customers can't resonate with that why, it's just as bad, if not worse, than just releasing products and calling it an A. Targeting a different segment whose needs aren't being met is going to help propel you into the new industry or propel your business from what it was to what it is. Less than 5% of small businesses survive beyond their five years. Almost 90% to 95% of businesses fail within their five years because they don't listen to their customers and they don't innovate.

13:31 Attend conferences or networking events. Even outside your immediate field and listen for emerging trends or common pain points discussed. Mark L. Johnson in an AWCI article on being a disruptor advises that you look for ideas. You read magazines, blogs, and books, but be open to new ideas. Even if they are at first seen far-fetched, often the seed of a disruptive idea comes from seeing something novel elsewhere and realizing how it could apply to your market.

14:33 That kind of variation shift may actually be better for people to budget who are living week-to-week or living bi-weekly, as opposed to a monthly one. Maybe you're getting a lot of churn rate because people aren't budgeting for the expense and they're getting over-tracks if you're going for that low-end market we mentioned earlier. All of these things factor into how to conduct business. And that's not how to conduct business, but how to serve your customers.

15:40 And now you're seeing your business fail. And you're seeing questions and comments about that business. And you're trying to figure out how to innovate. And maybe people have raised the red flag and said, you need to try this or do this. And you're like, no, no, no, I'm not paying attention to that. Or I'm not.

16:41 Okay, start preparing now before things shake up to an event where someone else is innovative and been able to satisfy those requirements and create something new and you are left behind. The AWCRI article I mentioned earlier gives examples like 3D printing, blockchain, and construction. Initially far-fetched ideas, but those who experiment early could carve out a niche.

17:46 It brings interconnectivity. It allows people to transport themselves and have freedom to be able to live, you know, halfway across the country and be able to work the other halfway across the country. But if you're not innovating and you're just building cars and you're just doing the same thing and the same thing and you're not paying attention to emerging technologies, even if you have a stable vehicle, eventually a vehicle could be obsolete and your entire line of business dies legit overnight.

18:48 Play around with it and see if it opens new possibilities. Many big disruptors started as the side experiments. Google famously allows employees 20% time for side projects, which led to products like Gmail, which now has catapulted them to serve businesses in a whole new way with Google Apps for Business and Google Enterprise.

19:52 A famous quote often shared in innovation circles, I think it's a tribute to Henry Ford, is, if I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said, faster horses. But we understand that now to mean cars, automobiles that couldn't be fathomed before. Sometimes a solution to a pain point is something your customers don't know, but you can create and innovate the solution to that pain point. And once you solve that pain point, you're off to the races. The point is that customers might not envision the radical solution, but an outsider or visionary might realize the real need is not a faster horse, but a car.

20:53 okay, if I'm, if I'm looking at this for the first time, what am I seeing? Ask questions like, why? You know, why are we doing things this way? Industry insiders may have stopped asking those questions and may have just put up with it. Why do we do it this way? Is there a different approach that would achieve the core goal more effectively?

21:53 Wolfen as outsiders to the traditional banking world.

22:59 I'm not telling you to do that, but innovation often comes in unexpected ways. By combining existing ideas in a new way, you don't necessarily need to invent a brand new technology. You can take a technology or method from one context and apply it to another.

24:03 from freelance work, like Upwork, to handcrafted goods, like Etsy. If you see a trend in one area, ask how it might play out in yours.

25:09 that undercut traditional distribution methods? Warby Parker did this for eyeglasses, bypassing optical retailers and selling directly online at lower prices.

26:09 and more people could afford. There's another option. Maybe you can save money by taking away a particular service that no one actually uses, or maybe they do, maybe it's 15%, and you remove it. Maybe like all these companies adding all this AI to cloud stuff and they're charging more and more and more. Google's one of them. Maybe you offer the service without AI. And people are okay with that. And then you're not paying the extra cost, and maybe the price goes to 15% of what the competitors have.

27:09 no one was delivering convenience store goods late at night and to college kids. So GoPuff built their own network of micro-fulfillment centers and drivers to bring chips, drinks, and household items to your door in minutes. They essentially disrupted the corner store by bringing it to you.

28:12 appealing to people who would never pay for a course or who found traditional methods boring. As a result, Duolingo scaled to hundreds of millions of users worldwide and went public, effectively redefining the industry. The idea didn't require new technology. It required a new approach. Gamification plus free access to an old problem. Learning languages. New technology? No. Old technology. Reimagined.

29:15 Integrating payment processing into websites. It's clunky, complicated apps, payment gateways, and you have to connect and do PCI compliance. And I would say that there is a component to the Stripe API that's also a little bit complicated. And so when I was looking at payment providers to build this ecosystem, I looked at Stripe. And they have a robust, really, really detailed API. And I'm able to do all sorts of creative things.

30:17 hey, this is the error message I'm getting. I can't seem to find it. And they were like, it was like, boom, here's the error message. This is what it means. Great. Went to that. Part of the documentation and was able to quickly fix that problem. In the event that existing payment solutions were built for big banks or big companies or e-commerce giants who just had the development team and the insurance money for PCI compliance and able to do this complicated communications, it was not designed for the new wave of app builders and small online businesses.

31:22 Actionable items and tips that will help you find your big idea. Well, let's summarize some of them so that we can get you disrupting. Here we go.

32:24 Some of the best startup ideas come from founders who scratch their own itch. If you have a persistent frustration and you can confirm that other people are having it as a consumer or in running your business, chances are others do too. Don't ignore those moments. When you think there has to be a better way to do this, that's your disruptor spirit talking, and it's important to activate that.

33:24 energy, food, plant-based meats, etc. If you stay informed, yeah, I know, I'm a vegan, well, technically pescatarian, so I eat plant-based meat, and most of it's all about the right spices. Hey, Americans, I know you guys enjoy your salt and pepper, but there are a whole new plethora of spices to enhance your food. Anyway, if you stay informed, you might spot how a trend could intersect with your industry.

34:29 Early experimentation can validate whether your idea has any traction at all, and if an experiment fails, it may reveal something you didn't or hadn't considered that leads to a better idea. Keep those little bits running.

35:30 It's great to have a big, disruptive vision, but you can start with a narrow focus. Identify a specific niche or segment where you can trial your idea. Disruptive startups often begin by doing one thing really, really well for a small group. Uber initially targeted San Francisco tech workers, who hated hailing cabs. Amazon started with just selling books online. And you can expand later. The initial goal is to prove a concept and learn. And you can even project your name to mean more in the future and start small, like Amazon. Or Apple. Apple started creating computers that began to be used in the education industry. Great.

36:32 It's a continuous day-to-day thing. And so you need the opportunity to allow the process to work. Sometimes it's filled with little eureka moments or big ones. But you've got to continue. Don't just take your one eureka moment and walk away with it. It might require iterating on an idea or combining multiple insights. Stay curious and keep probing. As entrepreneurs and author Ash said, Life's too short to build something nobody wants. So invest the time up front to ensure there's a real need and desire for the solution you came up with. If you identify a real burning problem and you have a clever way to solve it, you're well on your way to being a disruptor.

37:34 We'll discuss how to develop and execute your disruptive idea, because an idea without execution is just a dream. As we wrap up this exploration of finding your disruptive opportunity, keep in mind the words of William Bullard, Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow. Always be learning. Always be observing and challenging yesterday's solutions. That's where tomorrow's disruptive opportunities lie.

38:37 all of the companies and examples we gave to you are multiplied billions. A disruptive, innovative mindset catapults to billions. You can still fail. I'm not saying you can't. But I'm saying this is what billion-dollar companies do and billion-dollar ideas are made from.

39:37 I'm building it to help people like you succeed in very complex technological areas. Trust me, I may seem like a marketer with these, but trust me, I know coding. And I've developed it for many, many years. Not that I'm perfect. Not that I know everything. But I'm innovative, visionary, just like you.

40:39 and allow them to pursue the vision and purpose that you have for their life. I pray this in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. We'll see you next time, right here on Create. Bye. Bye. Bye.