ACCELERATING GROWTH AND INNOVATION

As we explain in recent book FAST >> FORWARD, clever and simple shifts in strategy and tactics, coupled with handy accelerants (e.g. off-the-shelf plug-and-play tools and technologies) can help you innovate and grow at a record pace.

It bears considering how this principle might apply to the concept of product development. For example, according to Crunchbase, nearly $19 billion in venture capital was invested across more than 25,000 startups in a single year alone – including thousands of software companies who raised an average of $40 million per seed round. But for all the time such firms spend creating forward-thinking solutions, most of these online app developers’ fortunes ultimately depend on simple, easily experimented-with variables, like whether or not a customer will ultimately click or tap to download and use their cutting-edge products.

All of which begs the question: Why spend years of time developing such grand-scale ventures when you could instead gauge their viability just by putting up a $20 website template touting the same product’s features (along with mock-up screenshots) first for pennies on the dollar and – before ever spending millions creating the software solution itself – seeing if you could instead actually get anyone to tap or click on the download button? Once you’d perfected the art of attracting and converting customers; getting a sense of which solutions and features most resonated with them; and determined just how big the potential audience for the software product would be (and gotten a better idea of precisely how much to spend making it, based on this information) – that would then be the time to start doubling-down on product development. Strangely, although even many entrepreneurs still don’t think this way today, it’s a simple, straightforward approach to right-sizing business solutions and strategies that popular online crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have proven the viability of a thousand times over.

As you can see, finding ways to cost-effectively innovate and improve your chances of encountering business success is often simply just a matter of perspective. And, for that matter, a function of your willingness to keep an open mind, and consistently look for ways to transform challenges into opportunities. To find out more, be sure to check out FAST >> FORWARD today, which also contains all sorts of other handy hints and tips for accelerating growth and innovation.