poncho gutierrez
2008-03-26 07:32:10 UTC

THIS IS GREAT! I work for 3M and we used to do this... but six sigma destroyed an innovative corporate culture with "risk management"...

Steve the bastard
2008-03-26 08:36:56 UTC

yada yada yada, you still have to have an UNDERSTANDING of what the market is about and what they want, you can't ignore that and just throw stuff out there. That is so George W. Bush !

But an understanding of what you THINK the market will want, combined with rapid prototyping and testing, will help you identify winners faster than losers.

that's why they call me Steve the Bastard

The Trizle Team
2008-03-26 12:59:13 UTC

Poncho,

Thanks for the message! 3M is/was such an amazing company to study, and how they went about their innovations. It must've been something else to work for them, and see how innovation developed. Google actually got their 20% time idea from 3M, so your company inspired a lot of great future innovators.

The Trizle Team
2008-03-26 13:05:58 UTC

Steve,

I think if we spelled out every single tidbit (which I thought was already implied from this article and previous ones), the article would be filthy long. Yes, you must have an understanding of your target market. Yes, you must innovate by exploiting your capabilities. (For instance, Google wouldn't just randomly throw any innovation out there unless it furthered its mission of organizing the world's information).

But, to really see if your innovation sticks, you won't know until you throw it out there.

"But an understanding of what you THINK the market will want, combined with rapid prototyping and testing, will help you identify winners faster than losers."

Again, I thought that was implied (i.e. of course, you'll have to think what the market wants -- I don't really know how to respond to that point.). Try not to get into red herrings, but understand the greater point.

Now, if you're talking about building a comprehensive product first, then testing it, then here's my response:

Good innovators like Google doesn't wait to release its product. It releases product ASAP to immediately gauge how the market responds. Waiting too long because you're developing something you believe the market wants will destroy time and resources, which could be better spent tinkering your product to immediate market feedback.

the big combo
2008-03-26 16:10:50 UTC

[...] [...]

Norbert
2008-03-26 16:45:50 UTC

"Release early, release often" -- the open source mantra applies to innovation just as much. In fact, producing open source software usually implies innovation. Today's web 2.0 startup founders know the ready-fire-aim approach very well: you have to put something out there as soon as possible and let your users/customers tell what they want to keep your startup not only alive but growing. You get so much further ahead by applying this strategy than sitting on a release for months. It's much more compelling, motivating and rewarding for developers and others employees too. Seems like a win-win for everyone.

The Trizle Team
2008-03-26 17:01:48 UTC

Very awesome input, Norbert. The agile approach to software development has made our lives much easier, and more productive. The open source community rocks at innovation. Thanks for the great write-up, man.

-Andrew

NewWorldOrder
2008-03-26 18:50:01 UTC

1) I thinks it's cool to see the Trizle Team interacting in the comments section

2) Steve, "the Bastard" part of your name is hilarious

3) Trizle Team: How do you listen to your users? I think it's generally believed that it's a good idea to listen to users, but how does a company go about doing that (e.g., watching forums, emails)?

The Trizle Team
2008-03-26 19:23:07 UTC

Hey NewWorldOrder,

Thanks for the comment! I think listening to your users can take a passive or active approach. That is, you can wait until someone gives you feedback on your products -- or you can actively solicit feedback.

The latter approach should give you a much better feel of how the general population feels because you can take certain feedback numbers without having any data bias within your research; i.e. you take a sufficient sample size, helping you infer what the general opinion feels about your products.

Regarding how to get that feedback, you can do it through various means: emails, forums, telephone, direct mail, etc.

I don't know if I answered your question, but please let me know!

-Andrew

NewWorldOrder
2008-03-27 00:40:36 UTC

I think that's the best answer I've gotten to that question.

I think the ability to listen to users and then act on that information is probably one of the most important qualities of a startup. If startups could listen and act on that listening effectively, I think startups would rarely fail.

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2009-01-31 22:38:32 UTC

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GiorgioViklo
2009-02-18 02:30:19 UTC

Hello,

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