🟢 5 Things you know about innovation that are wrong

Let’s kick off 2022 with a few simple reminders about innovation and, more specifically, things you should know by now but that you still might get wrong. I already addressed a few of these ideas these last few years but never in the same article:

1. Customer-centric is a bad idea

When dealing with innovation, by definition, most of the time, potential customers do not exist yet or are just unwilling to change their habits. Even when your innovation matches with early adopters’ tastes and needs (below 16% of market adoption), what you’ve achieved will not translate to the most crucial step: getting into the early core market (from 16% to 50% market adoption).

There’s a whole book laying out this problem in detail. It’s called Crossing the Chasm, published 30 years ago.