In his book Zero-to-One, Peter Theil states that if big entrepreneurs of yesteryears are to restart their business today, they will not do it the same way. So, it is useless to simply pursue opportunities of the yesteryears or look to develop a solution from that era. In doing so, he subtly points to the nature of disruptions that an entrepreneur would need to introduce.
Take the popular case of Tesla. If you are to ask what is the crucial element that Elon Musk did being at Tesla, which made it a relatively popular company that Chetan Maini did not do despite being the pioneer with the REVA car brand for so many years? One could claim that it was played at a different level.
While Maini has been a pioneer on many fronts, identifying technological challenges, overcoming, and developing the electric four-wheeler market, there were many reasons why the product did not take off the way Tesla did. Of the many factors, one factor to consider is the way Musk played the game.
Musk did not just project the solution as an electric vehicle. Nor did he use it to appeal to the green loving audience alone, given the personality and the eccentricity that Musk carries, the game was played using the media. Every single model that was developed was well covered. Bottlenecks that were identified were addressed and talked about in public. Musk’s influence is so huge that most of the electric vehicle manufacturers in India today have been inspired by his personality and want to be part of the EV revolution.
On similar lines, in the early days of the mini computer industry, there were many variants of components that would come into the market. Often one is not able to speak with the other. Some geeks who understood how to rig up a board with the appropriate components would make their own computers.
It is in this context that Apple made its entry. The integrated design emphasised by Steve Jobs, allowed the computer market to move away from hobbyists and geeks to a mass market. It attracted people who sought to simply plug and play their device without having to know what is inside. You don’t need to go scouting for hardware components, and then install the necessary software.
However, Apple’s integrated designs came with its own closed system – and worked with only a provided set of software that Apple allowed to be pre-loaded. The introduction of IBM-PC and clones architecture gave people more options. A number of software could now compete and work on the same hardware standard! And you as the user had the choice of what you would install and not!
Every industry comes in with such phases of innovation and disruption. One could look for patterns at how entrepreneurs intend to disrupt and, at the same time, solve legitimacy challenges to face a new category of products.
Ask yourself:
Other than product-related technical challenges, what factors on the market front would need to be addressed? How should these non-technical challenges be addressed?