https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/8-lessons-innovation-from-leaders-leading-global-india-jayaraman/ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/287795 https://blippar.com/en/

Why Innovation for Startups



 Why Innovation for Startups- In order to face competition and also to grow. Innovation as a way to find more appealing ways to do or make things that already exist.

Startups by nature are disruptors. The disruption can be with a new product or better service or creating new conveniences for the customers. This offers competitive advantage.

The innovation can be incremental or radical.

Technology has revolutionized the innovation landscape and a host of new startups have emerged.

AI, VR, AR, IoT etc. have created a new breed of startups...

Definition

Innovation is often also viewed as the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs, or existing market needs. This is accomplished through more-effective productsprocessesservicestechnologies, or business models that are readily available   to marketsgovernments and society. The term "innovation" can be defined as something original and more effective and, as a consequence, new, that "breaks into" the market or society.

Source: Wikipedia

Quotes on Innovation 

  • Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.” Steve JOBS

“Innovation is created as a result of constructive conflict.” -Jeff DeGraff

Why Innovation for Startups-"Innovate or Perish"

This refrain has never been so pressing and apt as it is today.

Every conference you walk into these days leaves you with punchlines that go something like:

"If you are not Uberized, you will be Kodak'd" or "It is not the big fish that eats the small fish, it is the fast fish that eats the slow fish".

Innovation is imperative for staying relevant and ahead of the game

Source:

8-lessons-innovation-from-leaders-leading-global-india-jayaraman


Why Innovation for Startups-Need for Innovation

It’s a sentiment few companies can afford to indulge, given that, according to Yale lecturer Richard Foster, “the average lifespan of companies on the S&P 500 Index has  decreased by more than 50 years in the last century. Foster’s research suggests that, “while successful companies lasted an average of 67 years in the 1920s, they typically exist for only 15 years today.”

That’s a big problem, and innovation is the solution. However, transforming an organization from innovation-averse to forward-thinking isn’t always an easy road to navigate.

Entrepreneur.com

Why Innovation for Startups?- Three Principles

Red Mango's Dan Kim

n the world of small business, innovation is often perceived as the catalyst that ignites the creation of new companies. By enabling the discovery of novel or disruptive solutions for the things people need, innovation can turn interesting ideas into viable enterprises.

But just as companies can successfully come to life as the result of innovation, they can also fail if they do not continue to innovate. Why? Businesses that commit to innovation are well positioned to develop goods and services that continuously meet shifting social trends and preferences, while those that avoid innovation face an ongoing risk of becoming irrelevant.

As obvious as that may sound, exposure to this risk is significantly higher for the small business owner, for whom the idea of innovation is too often overshadowed by the demanding responsibilities of actually running a company.

How we made innovation a core commitment at Red Mango

I experienced this challenge myself with Red Mango, the frozen yogurt and smoothie franchise I founded in 2006. I started Red Mango with a desire to make frozen yogurt in an entirely new way: I wanted to change the then-current perception of frozen yogurt as a soft-serve ice cream into an elevated one that positioned the product as real dairy yogurt which could be enjoyed softly frozen.

https://www.inc.com/young-entrepreneur-council/3-principles-of-innovation-for-startups-and-small-businesses.htm

Why Innovation for Startups
The 21 most innovative startups in tech
 

http://www.businessinsider.in/The-21-most-innovative-startups-in-tech/articleshow/50749458.cms

 Why Innovation for Startups-A Case Study- Blippar

Blippar wants to be bigger than Google and overhaul search with virtual reality.

What is it: Blippar's CEO and founder Ambarish Mitra says he'll never sell to Google or Microsoft. Why? Because he believes what he's trying to make "is bigger than the internet itself."

Blippar is best known for its augmented reality app primarily used by advertisers. A cereal box or a juice bottle can come to life with the camera's phone trained on it. For advertisers, it's a neat trick they can put on products.

Mitra's vision doesn't stop there, though. He wants to turn the world into a searchable database. Holding your phone up to an orange could provide a listing to a local store, its Wikipedia page for more information, or a website with recipes. Mitra wants to reinvent search in the real world — and he's audacious enough to give it a good shot.

Source; Blippar website

Funding: $72 million from investors including Qualcomm Ventures 

Smart packaging: Using AR to educate shoppers about the origins of their food

We are proud to be a part of the Visual Trust Initiative -- an end-to-end solution that allows Chinese shoppers to check the quality and origins of their food simply by scanning an item with the Blippar app. The initiative is powered by Blippar, Transparency-One and SGS and Carrefour is the first international retailer to take advantage of the technology.  

When shoppers scan products they can access quality certificates, test results, location details and images of the relevant farm, as well as nutritional information. This provides full supply-chain transparency from farm to fork.

Innovation Blockers

I can’t think of a single sentence that’s more antithetical to growth and innovation than the blind acceptance that some things can’t be changed within an organization.

Why Startups Struggle With Innovation-Mark Roberge , full-time professor at Harvard Business School

Roberge points to three common reasons for why this happens:

  1. Startups at later stages get overly confident on their read of the market and think they can get it right the first time.
  2. The executive team feels the pressure to keep pace with the 100% annual revenue growth and needs to throw a “hail mary” to get back on track.
  3. Investors put pressure on the company to keep pace with revenue growth expectations, despite a massive influx in new unpredictabilit                                                    Source:https://thinkgrowth.org

Why Innovation for Startups- Conclusion

Undoubtedly, innovation opportunities do come with risk-reward models, but if companies can develop and execute the right ones in ways that meet their customers' needs (and, more poignantly, what their customers will need but don't know just yet), a lot of good things can happen.