The Myth of Spontaneous Ideas
There is an idiom in the English vernacular that might be used in this context: that person came up with that solution “out of thin air.” This expression is used to describe the concept of a person coming up with an idea or an answer to a problem with no prior input. Creating something from nothing. I was talking to some investors and I heard this phrase in reference to a company idea. Wow, that entrepreneur came up with that idea out of thin air, was the comment. That got me thinking: do great ideas ever really come out of thin air?
The Reality of Idea Generation
I think the answer is absolutely no. Based on my experience, great ideas are usually born from the common. This means that someone who is experiencing a problem is experiencing enough intensity that an idea for a solution is born out of necessity. This feels like most of the ideas that I have seen become successful are born from this key ingredient. Having interviewed several founders of new companies, almost inevitably I hear a similar story. That story starts with, “While I was <fill in the blank,> I was dealing with <fill in the blank,> and I realized that we could <fill in the blank.> The point is that if you are looking for an amazing idea for a business, look no further than what you are doing all day, every day. Therein lies the idea that you can grab out of thin air.
Unintended Innovations
This leads me to a second consideration, that is related. The concept is that the key successful “go to market” idea for disruptive, rapid growth businesses is usually born out of something the company becomes good at while solving another problem. There are countless examples of this throughout the history of successful corporations. 3M, for example, started as a company making sandpaper. They become somewhat decent at creating sticky paper that they could glue abrasive minerals to. A lab assistant, Richard Drew, noticed while testing their abrasive paper at a body shop that they had a difficult process masking vehicles that were to be painted. It was not a giant leap of faith to consider how to take sticky paper, and invent “masking tape.” This was not out of thin air at all but rather an obvious application of something that 3M was actively doing. Most people recognize 3M for masking tape now, and not their original purpose. This dynamic continued. I am looking at my desk, and I notice that there is a 3M Post-it-note pad. This marvelous invention that would change our business lives forever happened because the original adhesive was too weak for any real application, so people started using this as a bookmark internally. This became so ubiquitous within the halls of 3M that it did not take very long for the idea to come up that this could be used as a mass-market office product.
From Side Projects to Main Products
A small gaming company called Tiny Speck. This was the brainchild of Stewart Butterfield, who launched into the development of the game called “Glitch.” I do not think they were ever successful at creating the game, but during the course of working together as a team, they created an internal communication tool. This allowed the team, which was mostly remote, to work together. This was just a small side project, but the tool became very popular internally. Soon, Tiny Speck ditched their gaming ambitions and started to work on launching their new enterprise communication tool called Slack. Over the years, I have been collecting stories like this and this is one of my favorite examples, but there are thousands more.
The most notable is, of course, AWS. Amazon Web Services. This was originally an e-commerce platform for Amazon’s own cloud infrastructure to run their own shopping platform. However, in 2006, it became obvious that they had built something incredibly valuable. This platform is now known as “the cloud.” This is really incredible if you think about it; Amazon was focused on becoming the dominant e-commerce platform, which they were quite successful at. Along the way, they built a process for developing a data center infrastructure that could support their rapid development efforts. Just like the Slack story, the internal tool became a major product and service offering.
This list continues. Google’s internal Adsense technology would become the chief and primary revenue generation mechanism for a corporate empire. Toyota would inadvertently change all of our lives by creating its own lean manufacturing process called TPS, which has now changed more than just assembly-line manufacturing. The point is that revolutionary ideas are born out of necessity and not thin air.
Conclusion: The Necessity of Innovation
In conclusion, the adage that “necessity is the mother of invention” holds true across the annals of business history. Time and again, we see that the most groundbreaking innovations do not spring from a vacuum but emerge from the challenges and needs encountered in everyday activities. From 3M’s serendipitous discovery of Post-it Notes to Amazon’s development of AWS, the most transformative ideas often develop as byproducts of attempts to solve other problems. These stories underscore the importance of staying engaged and observant in our environments, as the next great business idea might just be hidden within our current challenges. By embracing this mindset, entrepreneurs can turn everyday frustrations into revolutionary innovations, proving that great ideas are not pulled from thin air, but are unearthed through persistent effort and keen insight.
