Explore Forever

• Many players in an innovation ecosystem.

• Want to drive the Bus? Explore Forever!

• Why, and what, to explore.

The Fate of an Innovator.

Innovation.  It is a trendy word these days.

There are a lot of ways you can approach Innovation. You can invest in it as a venture capitalist, an angel investor, or a company that develops new products.  You can teach it or coach it in a course at a university, online, or in an accelerator. You can encourage and promote it through activities and policies at a government agency.  You can be an influencer, if you are charming and adept and telling good stories, and become famous by telling the world why Elon Musk is successful and why others failed. You can buy innovation as a customer: a new "thing", a new app, a new service, a new experience, a new process, a new ingredient, even some new kind of raw material.  

Or, you can do it.  <= That is the big "OR".

I remember being at a startup forum in Bangkok many years ago.  There was a panel of investors talking about venture investment opportunities and one of them said, "startup opportunities are like busses, there is always another one coming."

I was jolted.  It became painfully clear: there are lots of important players that make innovation work.  All of the people in the above paragraph are important stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem.  But...  

None of those players think of a new idea, test it, nurture it, find out if it is worth working on, and develop it to make it work.  

They don't need to.  People bring ideas to those people.  Those people say yes or no. They choose opportunities, put them together in a portfolio, and manage their risks.  For them, there will always be more people bringing them more ideas.  There will always be another bus coming.  

I realized at that moment that no matter what others are doing, I want to be driving the bus.

I don't care how small the bus is, I want to be driving it.  I don't care if the bus runs along some route in the middle of nowhere with only a small number of riders (hopefully there are at least some riders, otherwise this analogy breaks down--lol).  I enjoy the challenge of getting the bus up and running and driving it.

(You can use "low-hanging fruit" instead of "busses."  Harvest low-hanging fruit.  But, somebody still has to plant the tree.  Analogies abound in discussions of innovation and entrepreneurship.  Choose your analogy, but the message will be the same: there are lots of stakeholders, but only one kind of person who plants the seed, generates the spark, launches the idea...)

Let me manage expectations: I am not talking about the best way to make money.  Many people make far more in the stakeholder roles discussed earlier.  The guy on stage talking about buses is far more successful than I am based on any financial measure.  Most entrepreneurs get successful once and become investors forever after.  For the same reasons, doing something new is also not the best way to get famous, for the same reasons.  Innovation is not easy.  Failure is the norm.  It is frustrating.  It is not always fun.

Why do it then?

Building something new gives an incredible feeling of satisfaction, it brings a sense of "flow"--see Dr. Tae.  It gives you a confidence that you can confront any situation and know that you can find solutions to make that situation better.  And every once in a while, your bus and your bus route become more and more valuable.  More people get on your bus.  That feels even better.  Yes, getting lucky is part of the life of any innovator.

My message is for people who want to build something new, who want to find their own path, who want to drive their own bus. Let me help give a gentle nudge to anyone thinking about taking a leap into the unknown, a leap of faith.

You can leap with faith, with some confidence, and improve your chances of success.  You can enjoy the journey even when the destination turns out differently than expected. 

How?

• Explore Forever.

• Experiment Fast.

• Then Execute.

Let's start at the beginning.

Building something new starts with Explore Forever.

The why before how:

Unless we have unlimited resources, doing something new just to be new is not enough.  Even if we are rich and influential, we want our efforts to be meaningful to somebody else, right?  (The rich and influential seem to have an insatiable craving for the opinions of others!)  So, when we talk about building something new, we really mean building something new that others believe is better.

Why would you want to do that?

There are four reasons:

1. To solve an important problem: despite all of the great products, services, and innovations in the world, problems are still everywhere, remaining unsolved despite all of those solutions.  You might decide, "Enough is enough, I'm going to fix that!"  If you are able to fix the problem, you have done something new and better.

2. To create an opportunity: since there are still problems in the world, there are opportunities.

3. To empower yourself and the people around you: being able to build something new and better is about having the confidence to know you can influence the future that you desire.

4. To have fun (or maybe we should say, to create Flow).

What should we Explore?  

We want to build something new, and better, then we need to learn what better means.  We need to find out who believes it is better.  

Humans don't think alike: we all have our own views about what is better.  Our views on what is "good" or "better" even change within us, depending on the situation we are in.

Once we know what is better and who is looking for it, then we need to build a solution that delivers better.

Finally, we need to make sure it is worth doing, putting in all the effort, and spending whatever time and money we need to spend, to build this better thing.

Our challenge looks like this:

A lot of magic has to happen to get that good idea which lies at the intersection of the three circles.  Nobody knows ahead of time how long it's going to take to find it.  This uncertainty is an innovation killer for many people and for many organizations.  We cannot calculate a return on investment (ROI) on the search for good ideas.  It is impossible to say, "if I spend 4 hours I will get X useful ideas." 

Instead, the search for interesting people, problems, solutions, and resources, must happen continuously.  This is why I call it, Explore Forever. You need to build it into your basic operating system. Explore all of the time and enjoy it.  The very act feels effortless.  Satisfying curiosity is valuable on its own and encourages further learning.  If Explore Forever also yields a valuable opportunity along the way, we can consider that a bonus.

Let us now launch ourselves on a journey to Explore Forever.