From the experts: Why execution is far more important than innovation

Eight experts explain why innovation is an iterative process that relies on trial and error, requiring a pragmatic, adaptable and ego-free mindset that keeps chipping away.

“Ideas aren’t a valid currency. Execution is the only valid currency in business,” writes Paul Jarvis in Company of One: Why Staying Small is the Next Big Thing for Business.

“To clarify, as this can feel like a fairly controversial point to make, an idea alone is worthless because it stands outside of execution. So, for example, the idea itself, that growth should be questioned, is something I’ve been sharing for years online, in my newsletter and podcasts and with anyone who’ll listen.

“Too often we believe that we get only one chance to launch a product or a business, that the first splash is all that matters. If it doesn’t become massively profitable right away, we think, then it’s doomed. We somehow feel that there’s magic in the first time we open our (sometimes digital) doors to the public. The problem with this thinking is that most launches aren’t massive successes. Yes, they can be slightly profitable (if everything goes right), but often things don’t pay off as quickly as we hoped, because we’re still mostly guessing in the beginning. We guess at the intended audience, the positioning of the product, and the value that audience will assign to what we’re selling.

“The co-founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman, has said that if you aren’t embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late. It’s ridiculous to believe that every company grows out of a founder’s fully formed and unchanging idea, especially since most wildly successful companies achieved their place only by course-correcting, changing entirely, or iterating their way to greatness.”

“The primary role of an innovative leader is not only to innovate on his or her own, but to create an environment that brings others into the innovation process,” writes Randy Greiser in The Ordinary Leader.

“Yes, I or others may be team leaders who guide the process, but it is next to impossible to innovate alone. A single person can have a creative idea, but innovation almost always involves a group of people working together to bring the idea to fruition.

“Once ideas for innovation emerge, they need teams to turn them into reality. When we select a team to innovate around an idea, we intentionally and thoughtfully discuss who should lead and drive the implementation of each idea and who else should be on the team. Leadership provides guidance and parameters and helps establish time frames and benchmarks. The team leader provides updates until the project is completed and discusses issues or concerns with leadership as they arise.”

“When growing a startup, there are always two realities you have to constantly balance: the future Utopian state where everything is magical and seamless, and the current dismal reality where you never have enough people or time, the product is never where you dream it to be and you’re embarrassed by every bug,” says Canva co-founder Melanie Perkins in this SmartCompany article from 2019.

“That may sound negative, but I think dreaming up a beautiful utopian future and then struggling hard to get there is actually the weird delight of building a high-growth company.

“A lot of companies (even some very large tech ones) have a ‘short’ ladder: they set out to do something, reach their initial goal of getting a lot of user traction, and then in some ways have an identity crisis. What to do next? Other companies have huge lofty dreams,but don’t have tangible steps to get there.

“I think the ‘ideal’ vision comprises both: a huge vision that stretches all the way to the moon and will take decades to achieve, but then a lot of small tangible steps along the way.”

“In the face of an unknown future, entrepreneurs act. More specifically, they: Take a small, smart step forward; Pause to see what they learned by doing so; and build that learning into what they do next.” That’s the finding of Saras Sarasvathy, professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, as reported in Just Start: Take Action, Embrace Uncertainty, Create the Future by Leonard A. Schlesinger and Charles F. Kiefer.

“So, what’s a smart step? It is the action you take based on the resources you have at hand and never involves more than you can afford to lose, that is, your acceptable loss. It can involve bringing other people along, although initially it does not have to. Having taken the step, you pause to reflect on what you have learned. From there, you take another smart step or quit if your desire has waned (or you have discovered something else that you want more) or if you have exceeded your acceptable loss. You repeat this process until: You succeed. Or You no longer want to continue. (You changed your mind; something else is more appealing.) Or You exceed your acceptable loss. Or You prove to yourself it can’t be done.”

“I always live by the motto of ‘Ready, fire, aim’,” says Sarasvathy. “I think if you spend too much time doing ‘Ready, aim, aim, aim,’ you’re never going to see all the good things that would happen if you actually started doing it. I think business plans are interesting, but they have no real meaning, because you can’t put in all the positive things that will occur…If you know intrinsically that this is possible, you just have to find out how to make it possible, which you can’t do ahead of time.”

“Find 10 people. 10 people who trust you/respect you/need you/listen to you…” writes Seth Godin in his highly popular marketing and management blog.

“Those 10 people need what you have to sell, or want it.

“And if they love it, you win. If they love it, they’ll each find you ten more people (or a hundred or a thousand or, perhaps, just three). Repeat.

“If they don’t love it, you need a new product. Start over.

“Your idea spreads. Your business grows. Not as fast as you want, but faster than you could ever imagine.

“This approach changes the posture and timing of everything you do.

“You can no longer market to the anonymous masses. They’re not anonymous and they’re not masses. You can only market to people who are willing participants. Like this group of 10.

“The timing means that the idea of a ‘launch’ and press releases and the big unveiling is nuts. Instead, plan on the gradual build that turns into a tidal wave. Organise for it and spend money appropriately. The fact is, the curve of money spent (big hump, then it tails off) is precisely backwards to what you actually need.”

“When you are a young company, you want to have one hero product. Not five. Not 11. One,” writes Thirdlove co-founder and CEO Heidi Zak in Inc.

“The reason is because when you are building something new, you have limitations on time, energy, and resources — and minimal resources spread across a handful of products will never be as effective as all of those same resources invested into one hero product. And for many years, this one hero product will be your entire mission. You, your co-founders and partners, and your early employees and company collaborators would all be focused on getting that one product (or service) to work.”

“When you launch a new product, the first question to ask yourself is not ‘How is this new product better than the competition?’ but ‘First what?’ In other words, what category is this new product first in?” writes Tim Ferris in Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers.

“Charles Schwab didn’t open a better brokerage firm. He opened the first discount broker. This is counter to classic marketing thinking, which is brand oriented: How do I get people to prefer my brand? Forget the brand. Think categories. Prospects are on the defensive when it comes to brands. Everyone talks about why their brand is better. But prospects have an open mind when it comes to categories. Everyone is interested in what’s new. Few people are interested in what’s better. When you’re the first in a new category, promote the category. In essence, you have no competition. DEC told its prospects why they ought to buy a minicomputer, not a DEC minicomputer.”

“Successful experimentation requires easy endings. That is, you’ve got to be willing to try lots of different things, keep those that work, and put a quick, painless death to those that don’t,” asserts Jim Collins in Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0.

“Keep projects small as long as possible, thus making it easier to say, ‘Well, that didn’t work. Let’s try something else.’ If a project becomes too big too quickly, it’ll begin to fight for its own life, even though it might be wiser to end the experiment and start a new one: ‘Hey, we’ve assigned seventeen people and spent a year on this thing. We can’t end it’.”