How to Drive Innovation
(2 Min Read) Philosophy on delivering exceptional value to the customer
Yesterday I tweeted
The reason this thought came to mind is that my team is in process of creating the roadmap for the year 2022. One of the things we want to do is to deliver exponential (not incremental) impact. And for that, we want our plan to be innovative.
That led us to define what true innovation looks like (for us) and it’s what I am sharing in this post is the principle we derived our definition from.
What true innovation looks like?
Circa 2004, when Gmail launched; email already existed. Hotmail was the king of emails. Yahoomail was a close second.
But all emails providers only offered 1MB or 2MB of storage, which restricted emails to be text only.
When Gmail launched, it offered 1GB of free storage from Day 1. That was a game-changer. Google provided 1000x value to users at no additional cost, i.e., free.
But the value didn't come from 1GB of storage. The value came from what you could do with that storage. Gmail changed email from text-only service to attachment service. That was an innovation.
In 2004, when we had to transfer zip files, mp3 songs, pictures, etc., we split the document using a splitter and then loaded them in floppy disks and rejoined them on the other machine.
Gmail's 1GB short-circuited the loop. Now we could use emails to transfer. While that change may look minor today, it was a great innovation. It meant that:
No more splitting/un-splitting files and putting them in floppy disks (saved time)
No more buying the physical floppy disks (saved money)
No more traveling with the floppy disks (saved hassle)
As we all know, Gmail was an instant success.
So what can we learn from that story and how can we drive innovation in our verticals?
We can follow the proven principle of:
Deliver 1000x value AND/OR Reduce cost by 10x
It is really hard to do but when it happens, it’s a game-changer.
Who is innovating today?
Many companies are innovating in their space but in the cloud space, Amazon announced "AWS Free Tier Data Transfer Expansion – 100 GB From Regions and 1 TB From Amazon CloudFront Per Month."
When you read their press release, AWS is literally delivering 1000x values at no additional cost i.e. free.
Also, it is not the first time Amazon announced a price reduction. It's a constant theme for them. And that’s how AWS has been able to continue to innovate in the cloud space.
What we have to see next is what innovation gets unlocked as a part of this change.
I bet that in 2-3 years, the majority of new companies will be on AWS. It would be a great unlock for Amazon but more so for companies as they don't have to:
Waste time deciding between different cloud providers
Spend money in the early days, and when they do, their dollar stretches further
Hassle with maintaining multiple cloud offerings
I am really excited about what this change brings. If you know about other companies and products that are delivering 1000x value and/or reducing cost by 10x, please share that with the community in the comments.
(Note: I am not associated with Amazon in any way to promote this. I am just sharing my views as a technologist who is excited about innovation)
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