THE INNOVATOR'S ATTITUDE

A monthly newsletter with the objective of helping leaders innovate profitably by providing them with best practices, models, and different perspectives.

On Effectively Communicating Ideas

Transforming ideas into money is perhaps an overly simplistic, but still relatively accurate description of an innovation process.

The basic unit of work is an idea, or to be more specific a business idea. Here we must differentiate a mere thought from an idea. The former is fluffy, inarticulate, and incomplete. The latter is possible to articulate and state who is it for, what is it about, and what are the benefits for the benefactee and the benefactor.

The level and accuracy of the detail correspond to the idea’s maturity. At early stages, just after it has been articulated, the idea is nothing more than a bundle of assumptions held together by belief that it is worth further exploration. At later stages, for example after product-market fit has been reached, it is a bundle of market evidence and well-known high-risk assumptions that we must answer to scale further.