Innovative Leap?

There is an expression in investing, people can’t tell if you are wrong or early. Good ideas can be tricky to express and obviously in hindsight when it all seems like it was the logical thing to do.

Because we don’t live in a vacuum and information is being passed around, through, and at us at all times. New ideas can be created independently but appear at the same time.

Calculus was discovered in the 17th century by the great mathematician Issac Newton, but it was also discovered at roughly the same time in Germany by another great mathematician Gottfried Leibniz. However, as Newtown even said, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants” and maybe both men had read Greek and Indian mathematicians’ work and connected the dots.

Natural selection was expressed by both Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. in 1839, the first photographic methods were invented by Louis Daguerre and Henry Fox Talbot, and there are many other examples of Simultaneous Invention.

Being Early

There are other circumstances where ideas are too ahead of their time. These ideas are a struggle to understand and get to grips with and mostly are ignored.

Henry Ford made the car accessible to the people. The Ford Model T changed automotive history. His use of the production line saved money and made cars easier and less expensive to build. It was a huge success.

However, his wife drove an electric car. A 1914 Detroit Electric Model 47 Brougham to be specific. They didn’t have a transmission and they would start without a hand crank. Even with its benefits, it didn’t win out over the petrol car. It was too ahead of its time.

Round Two

Then in 1985, Sir Clive Sinclair, at the time was competing with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as a computer expert and business savant had the idea of making the C5. It was meant to be a personal electric vehicle to help you on your daily commute.

It failed horribly.

Listening to him speak about clean transport would not be out of place right now, just he didn’t have the technology, design chops, and infrastructure for the idea to work.

Adjacent possible

Steven Johnson explores innovations and the idea of the adjacent possible in this book “Where Good Ideas Come From“.

Johnson talks about evolution being done a step at a time. This is how most ideas work. They can make small changes and you can see how they connect. Similar to German Cars getting just slightly better than the car last year. Over time they make big changes and new cars are more reliable, faster, comfier, and require less fuel.

But that small steps of what is possible would never make the electric car. There had to be a giant leap into something that wasn’t even thought of as possible to do that.

These are dangerous ideas because people won’t get them until they seem like the obvious solution and you will be putting it all on the line for it.

Failed Leaps

Blockbuster could have bought Netflix for US$50 million dollars but they couldn’t see the leap. They were stuck in their business model and the idea of a DVD by mail rental service didn’t make sense.

Kodak, the film-maker, also had an amazing R&D department. They even invented the first digital camera and then killed it. It was seen as too risky, too close to destroying their cash cow of photographic film. It was not adjacent to them.

How to apply it?

When you are pitching ideas with people you know, make sure the people are comfortable with the risk of making a leap. Lots of people want to play it safe and simple. It makes sense, it has gotten them this far, why change it?

Take people on a journey showing them all the spots on the way. Use the Same, Same, But Different approach so have it still feel familiar but show them a new world that could exist.

If the people around you love a good risk, then pitch the ideas like crazy. Shape the world as you see it. Jump off the high diving board and see where you might land.

Post inspired by Cautionary Tales