Two types of innovation: plug-and-play solutions that fit existing workflows, and foundational primitives that force customers to rebuild their processes. Transformation-focused products create bigger deals but smaller markets. Founders need to decide if they're selling a problem-solver or demanding their customers reinvent themselves.
Innovation is transformation. When I talk to businesses that have a really clever new solution to a problem, I find there's sort of two categories they can fall into. One is they can sort of slot in their new widget or whatever it is, and it will solve a problem, immediate problem for the customer. But more often they have something that's more of a primitive and they need people to figure out how to use it in order to transform their business and take big advantage of it. Worse, Often these companies are taking an agnostic approach to how their technology should be used to solve problems in order to facilitate maximum innovation. And that creates a scenario where you need your clients to be ready to do a transformation in order for them to see the value that's coming out of it. That can be a very big-ticket, high-value way to proceed, but also usually involves having a relatively small end. So consider, would you have your innovative, clever solution How much innovation do you require of your customers? Is it a transformation or a problem to be solved?
