Competition is a brutal thing. It’s likened to a pie, with everyone trying to get a piece—and a piece that’s larger than anyone else’s. If you grew up in a large family where pie was scarce, you can relate all-too-well to this analogy. You grew up understanding competition.
But if competition is everyone trying to get a piece of the pie, innovation is about making your own pie. Where there’s limitation and competition in the one pie, you develop a new horizon. You develop a new idea that doesn’t have the competition. And how sweet it is, because you get to determine the flavor, the crust…you’re following the analogy, right?
It’s like when Apple created the iPhone. Every phone company was scrambling to make a slightly less crappy product and gain more marketshare. Then iPhone develops a device that’s in its own world. They made their own pie. There was nothing quite like it and not really any competition.
My first question for you is this: Where do you experience competition that you could escape from by innovating?
The problem with this, though, is that once you’ve made this new pie, people take notice. Suddenly, they start wanting a piece of the new pie. They shift their attention. Then there’s competition once again.
That’s frustrating. But that’s where the need for continued innovation comes in.
And this separates the true innovators from the person with one good idea. You can take one idea pretty far. But a true innovator has many. They keep coming. And he or she keeps pushing them forward. Basically, innovators are experts at baking pies.
So my second question is this: You may have innovated in the past, but are you working on innovating again? And again? Keep pushing forward, and there will be enough pie to go around for everyone.
