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Justin and Jason talk to Paul Paetz CEO of Innovative Disruption and curator of Innovative Disruption Daily.
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Interesting interview. Personally I am a little bit skeptical when it comes to people that “have all the answers” yet there is not a track record of results. I would imagine that if some one has the magic pill for disruptive innovation wouldn’t you be applying that to your own business or developing new business left and right.
Just personal point of view from a very skeptical person. None the less excellent comment sense points of view brought to life during the interview.
Good job guys.
Hey Guys,
Good episode.
A lot of technology sucks, especially at first. Features develop around limitations that might no longer exists. Features get added randomly or as they become possible. etc. etc.
There are often opportunities to make better products by simplifying & getting better at the core. One of the most straightforward example is the flipcam. 1hr battery, 1 hr recording. play. record. That’s it. Everyone could understand (and afford it).
It could have been 4X as expensive (mid range) with larger replaceable batteries, more memory, resolution, etc etc. It might have been as successful, if it had still been as simple. The question is, would they have made it that simple if they weren’t making it that cheap? Cheap goes well with simple. It requires it, justifies it. If you try to answer the question of “how do I make a computer for under $100 that some people will like?” any good answers you find will probably be innovative.
Maybe cheaper/worse is just a proxy for some more general rule about simplifying and reinventing or something. But, it’s still worth noticing how many disruptive products do fall into the cliche disruptive technology category – cheaper/worse/simpler/competing with non consumption… Maybe it’s not that great an idea to replace this rule of thumb with “it depends”. Just this once Jason 😉
Sorry guys, I turned it off after the 10min mark .. almost feel asleep.
He’s a boring speaker .. droning along forever.
( 9 minutes and he is still talking without any interaction from you guys .. )
If Apple could not be used as an example, would this “Disruption” theory still hold? 20 minutes in and it seems that this is more study of Apple Computer, with no grand principles to be found.
The Oskar for most boring speaker goes to this guy , he spoke for an hour and said absolutely nothing!
I should have stopped at 10 min like D.K but i listened and hoped its going to get better it didn’t
Thanks for the reviews and taking a bullet for the rest of us 🙂 There are plenty of archived shows to listen to.
Ditto D.K.
I was clinically dead at 09:11 in.
Wow! Looks like it is techzing tough love week!
Are the trolls getting more innovative to disrupt techzing? Or did the guys make a rarely seen fumble?
I haven’t listened to the episode, but I’m willing to give it ten minutes to find out.
Sorry guys, I made it to the 8 minute mark and could tell that the comments above were just being honest. Sorry, no trolls here.
A gentle suggestion: if you suspect that a show isn’t up to you usual high standard, you don’t have to publish it (even though feelings of the interviewee may be hurt). But techzing has a hard earned reputation that deserves protecting.
Long time listeners will know that this episode is not your greatest and won’t think less of the show. But I would hate first time listeners getting the wrong idea and not giving you a second chance.
Anyway, thanks for putting in the effort, I know you both put on a lot of effort into this, for little cash reward, so comments like these (including mine) might be a bit of a downer, so don’t take it to heart!
Looking forward to the next great episode.
Cheers,
James.
I enjoyed the interview, yes he wasn’t the typical “type A” personality but his answers were thoughtful and considered.
He definitely gave me some more food for thought on what it actually means to be disruptive.
Very well done Jason on letting Paul speak even when he left pauses between sentences, it made for good listening and kept the interview on track.
I agree with the general sentiment of the comments – I didn’t really care for this particular interview. I think it could have been improved by doing a bit of a recap of what Thomas Thurston’s take was before Paul dove right in – it was almost 100 episodes ago when we first heard about distruption theory! My memory was jogged a bit when Jason mentioned the “cheaper, worse, and improving” conclusion but by that point I was lost.
I would be more interested to hear Paul’s feedback for Pluggio because I found it a bit hard to draw practical conclusions from the information. I found myself feeling the same way when you interviewed Joanna Weibe until she started giving Justin direct feedback on his headlines.
Also, Jason – why not bring up Uber? They are certainly seem disruptive and the audience is familiar with them. I had trouble understanding some of the conclusions Paul was making because I am not familiar with the rise of the 90s-era tech companies (IBM, Oracle, Motorola), only the fall. Maybe trying to work in some more recent examples (Dropbox, Airbnb, etc) would have helped.
Anyways – hope this kind of feedback is helpful! Looking forward to the next discussion show.
I have to agree I was beginning to feel a bit drowsy as well around the 10 min mark, but then the discussion picked up a bit. And although it got a bit academic at times, I got a couple of good take-aways. However, I agree with the suggestions above of giving a bit of background info on the topic and include more familiar examples that we can relate to.
And even if this wasn’t everyone’s favorite episode – come on, you guys have cranked out 170 freakin’ episodes by now – there’s no way they’ll all be on the same level and appeal to everyone. You’re doing a great show and I’m looking forward to the next ep.
Btw, is there a way to set up a recurring donation? Just thought it would make sense with an automatic “latte-a-month” donation (or whatever level one would like), instead of you guys having to remind us forgetful long-time listeners to pitch in.
It’s disappointing that the show didn’t turn out to be as strong as it could have been and I think I’ll probably have to shoulder much of the blame for this one. Since Justin is a little more reserved and polite than I am, it’s sort of become my role (or maybe just tendency) to interrupt our guests with questions, comments and irrelevant anecdotes. But for some reason I decided to just sit back and let this interview ride, which in retrospect was clearly a mistake.
With guests like Rob Walling or Peter Cooper, who are used to being recorded and speaking to an audience, you can give them that kind of rope because they know how to time their own speaking, but with anyone lacking that experience you need to provide guardrails even if it means a few unappreciated interruptions. I think we did Paul a bit of a disservice by giving him as wide of a berth as we did, and I feel bad that he’s had to read so much negative feedback as I’m well-acquainted with the ill feeling you get in your stomach when you read that kind of stuff. I’ll try to do a better job in the future of providing more of a framework for future guests, but if you found anything positive from the interview that you’d be willing to share it would be nice to hear some of it if just to balance out the disappointment.
By the way, I think we’re going to take a break from interviews for the next couple weeks and get back to doing some discussion shows. I know I’ve been missing them and am just about to burst at the seems with unsupported theories, observations and opinions. 😉 Also, after putting as much work as we have into AnyFu over the past few weeks we definitely have some new insights to share, and besides I think we’re well overdue for a comprehensive debriefing.
No worries Jason. I should have realized myself that this was a bit academic, and focused more on snappy stories and perhaps talked about projects that listeners are more familiar with. I have received a number of positive comments from people that have come to my site and registered, so I think perception of value may depend on how relevant the material is to your specific business. When I listened to it myself, there’s no question I went a bit slow and spent a bit too much time on theory. So, my apologies to those who found it boring or too slow paced.
@Helmut. Glad you got some value and saw that much of this is common sense. I do not profess to have all the answers. I do have a strong predictive analytic tool that accurately identifies disruptors and identifies success factors and weaknesses. I also have a strong track record of success with my clients in shaping disruptive innovations, although I was conscious of trying not make this a sales pitch for myself, or of disclosing confidential things about my clients. There is not a magic pill, but there are repeating patterns leading to market disruption which have been observed over long periods of time in many industries. You may be interested in downloading an ebook from my site which elaborates on the value of those predictions. (It requires registration, but I promise you won’t be badgered with marketing, and you can even put garbage in most of the fields if that makes you feel safer.) Follow this link to get it: tiny.cc/dsrpt_ebook
I probably did not stress enough that disruptive innovation is not a theory about products, but a theory about marketing, and how new products and services can capture a toehold and grow to replace and become the new dominant market incumbent. Regarding why I am not applying this to my own business, you can look at that two ways. The theory isn’t applicable to what I do. I’m not a developer, so I apply my market strategy, customer development and analysis skills through people that are. But, since I frequently take equity compensation, in a way I am applying it to my own businesses. Personally, I don’t wish to be a large business, so my goal is not to dominate a market but to work on fun and interesting projects. I’ve worked with a number of successful startups, and that suits me fine. That said, I am applying some disruptive concepts to create services that I intend to make freely available. I will let Justin + Jason know when you can sample them.
@nethy. Good summary, although achieving those things is easier said than done. I wouldn’t describe it as cliche — that pattern is what makes things disruptive. In other words, the definition of a low-end disruption is a low-priced innovation, addressing an undesirable (to incumbents), low-margin segment with features that incumbent customers consider inadequate. It has to appear to incumbents to not be competitive so that they don’t feel compelled to attack and defend their territory, which is why the innovation is ultimately able to succeed, grow strong, and then move upmarket.
One other thing that’s important is targeting an unmet or under-served need (targeting non-consumption is a subset of this). The question is how do you know which under-served needs customers will pay for a solution for, and how much they’re willing to pay. This is where the concept of a “job to be done” is important. Click this link to download a 2007 article (pdf) from Harvard Business Review that describes why this is an important attribute of disruptive innovations. (In the podcast, we discussed finding a job for which Pluggio is uniquely suited as the best candidate for hire, and how Pluggio could be enhanced to be the perfect and maybe only candidate for that job (content curation, in an ecosystem that includes social media and special interest publications designed by consultants, businesses, hobbyists). This is where that thought process for Pluggio comes from. If you’re inclined to more detailed “how to” guides, there is an excellent book by Anthony Ulwick “What Customers Want: Using Outcome-Driven Innovation to Create Breakthrough Products and Services”, which is where Christensen borrowed the original idea from.
@Mikael. Thanks for your constructive critique. I agree that more current and familiar examples would have improved the result. The reason we picked the Apple example is that when the iPhone was released in 2007, many people said it was not a disruptive innovation, that it would not be able to compete effectively in an already crowded market, and predicted incorrectly that it would flop, including Clayton Christensen (father of disruption theory) and Thomas Thurston (founder of Growth Science) who created a predictive modelling tool to identify disruptors. My model predicted the opposite, and I documented that in an extensive article published on the eve of the iPhone’s release. When I originally approached Jason and Justin about this, they were curious about how my analytics and view of disruption differed such that I could arrive at such a different conclusion based on the same data. In retrospect, it seems obvious that the iPhone would be a huge success, but at the time, it certainly wasn’t. (For those curious about how to apply these insights for investing, I put my money where my mouth is, purchasing a significant amount of Apple stock, which is now trading more than 600% higher.) It’s interesting that Steve Ballmer laughed at how ridiculous the notion of a phone from Apple was in 2007, yet today, less than 5 years later, the iPhone business alone is bigger than Microsoft, and far more profitable. Most entrepreneurs who listen to this show have a desire for this kind of breakthrough success for their products, so understanding the key factors that drive disruption, which factors work against disruptive success, and how to design products and services deliberately to be disruptive is critical for those individuals. It sounds like, based on other remarks, that perhaps we should have spent more time diagnosing Pluggio, and suggested enhancements to make it disruptive, which I would be happy to do.
@Matt. Thank you as well for the constructive feedback. I agree with most of what you said.
I agree that the topic may not be of interest to a subset of the audience and that “managing”/redirecting the guest would have made the show better. But at the same time this is what make the show diverse – aliens, tech, marketing, disruption, discussions – all-in-one! 😉
I had enjoyed Thomas Thurston’s show, but I think this show widened the field by looking at attributes other than worse/cheaper/improving-fast, such as simplicity creating new unserved or under-served markets.
Although the Apple story is bit over-played these days, the focus on RIM and IBM was interesting too.
As a long time user of Pluggio, I also was also quite intrigued about Paul’s recommendations like more simplification, focus on making tweeting more approachable to a broader user base, as well as the suggestion to make it easier to filter and bubble tweets on topics you care a lot about. It’s true that you miss most of the tweet stream and an automated curation / tweets-you-must-see view would be super useful.
So hopefully this provides another positive counter-weight. Thanks for another show on the innovative disruption.
@Paul, I am definitely going to download/read the “Disruptive Confusion Unraveled!” ebook and subscribe to the paper.li!
I will be the first to admit that I was zoning out in the first 9 mins but glad I stuck through to the end. I found the part about costs gold and thinking about it that really is what got companies like Google and Apple to where they are today. Less an interview and more a prompted lecture this is still totally worth listening to.
Here’s a Harvard Business Review article that discusses Steve Jobs’ interest in disruptive innovation and Clay Christensen’s book, “The Innovator’s Dilemma:
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/10/steve_jobs_solved_the_innovato.html
Near the end, the author of the article calls out Christensen’s one big miss in terms of predicting disruption… Apple… 🙂
I enjoyed the interview, guys. And given the feedback above, it was a learning experience for all.
Paul, congrats on your Apple stock purchase. It was a very intelligent move, based on your contrarian view of the future.
Hey guys,
I agree with Robin on all points (well said) – obviously a change of pace but very interesting all the same.
Coincidently, I heard not one but two good examples today on how the disruptive nature of your product is affected by your choice of customer and the role that pricing plays in this.
Obviously the first example was from Paul in this episode – Gillette’s failure to exploit the disruptive potential of their Fusion product by positioning themselves as the expensive, premium product in the wet razor-blade market… instead of the cheap innovation to the high-end electric razor incumbents.
The second example was from Ash Maurya, who gave a talk at the Lean Startup Dublin meetup tonight. Ash talked about how to price an MVP and the role that pricing plays in creating desire for your product. The example he gave was Steve Jobs’ unavailing of the iPad. Steve stood on stage in front of a huge screen that displayed the price €999, and spoke about how superior the iPad was compared to a netbook. When the price of the iPad was finally revealed, €499 (“… half the price…”) , the crowd went wild. As Ash said, he could have sold the iPad as a larger iPhone, or a premium eReader. Instead he positioned it as the cheaper alternative to the netbook.
Although Ash was speaking about the effects of pricing on desire, I think it’s a nice example of a successful disruptive strategy to compliment Paul’s one.
Keep up the good,
Ciarán
Hi Ciaran:
The iPad example is a great one. Steve was a master of positioning (at least in his second incarnation) for disruption. There is very little discussion of how critical positioning, segmentation, pricing strategy, messaging, ecosystem and other elements of marketing are to achieving disruption in any of the written texts. I think that’s why so many entrepreneurs mistakenly believe that disruptive innovation is a theory about technology.
Of course it isn’t. Technology is neither necessary nor sufficient for disruption to occur. It’s simply a powerful enabler, which is why so many of the market disruptions that we can name come out of places like Silicon Valley.
I wrote about this very subject (not the pricing bit, but all the other elements of marketing strategy) in a blog I posted yesterday that examines how Febreze freshener went from a near market disaster to being the best selling product in its category and one of P&G’s top product franchises. It’s a very non-obvious example of market disruption, which makes it more interesting to learn from (at least I think so).
Thanks for another good example. I’ll definitely reuse it.
I must admit I only listened to about 20 minutes of this one, I don’t think it was terrible, but I’m usually at least 2 to 3 podcasts behind and I don’t have that much time to listen. If Jason and Justin have a hiatus at some point and I catch up, I’ll come back and check it out.