Knowing when to start a race
A good idea needs a good timing… Especially if it comes to a product category. The first electric car was built in Russia in 1875. By 1900 38% of the cars in the USA were electric. With worldwide discoveries of huge oil reserves, petroleum got more affordable. Petrol driven cars could travel faster and further than the electric ones. We know the rest of the story… The TIMING for petrol cars was just perfect to conquer the world.
Knowing how to win a race
A good idea needs speed… Especially if it comes to be faster than others within a product category. At the end of the 90ties more and more OEMs started introducing electric cars. The Tesla Model S was introduced in 2012. Until recently Tesla was the fastest to conquer the market for electric cars. Recently the BYD overtook Tesla in terms of market share for electric vehicles.
So what…
If your idea is about a new product/service category, it will probably need certain prerequisites to really fly. It might be the infrastructure like roads, gas stations, social needs or wants, nowadays also environmental and sustainability issues, technical or distribution platforms/ecosystems, etc. If you are too early, you will not get enough early adopters who then bring you to the tipping point. In summary, timing when to start the race is crucial.
If your idea is about a product or service within an established category, timing is of less importance but the speed is. That’s why very often companies that have joined the race later, manage actually to win it. They might use different competitive advantages and one of them is the speed. In summary, speed is crucial to win the race.
An idea is a DIFFERENT way of doing things. And a good idea is a BETTER way of doing things. Sometimes we work on it to make it the BEST way of doing things. It takes time and while we are optimizing it, somebody else comes up with an even better way...I think that time to market is crucial and there is never the best way of doing things. Only a better one.
At the beginning, there is an idea. And sometimes it needs a looooooong time for it to become reality.
Some of us, however, manage to make it reality very fast. They become leaders.
It is not the idea that makes them leaders. It is the time to market that separates leaders from followers.
ARE YOU STILL IN LOVE WITH YOUR IDEA OR ARE YOU ALREADY DATING THE MARKET?
The MVP approach or “Prototyping” stresses the importance of quickly bringing a functional product to the market that meets basic user needs. In this context, the emphasis on "time to market" highlights that, even if an idea is innovative and better in the long run, it's crucial to swiftly introduce a working product version to gain a competitive edge and lead the industry. So, timely implementation of the MVP can be what sets leaders apart from followers.
The term "prototype" has its roots in the Greek language. It is derived from the combination of two Greek words: "protos," meaning "first," and "typos," meaning "impression".
Just simply the great Oscar Wilde already said “There is never a second chance to make…