Few schools produce more successful entrepreneurs than MIT. But their students don't just learn about product development on their own time; you might be surprised to know that they actually have a class dedicated to creating breakthrough products. The course exposes students to an innovation framework, that they can utilize to create the next big thing. You can actually view the course here (complete with video lectures), and I highly recommend that you do. If you want the short version though, here's how it works:

The 2 Types of Innovation
The two types of innovation:

1. Incremental Innovation
2. Full Innovation

Incremental innovation deals with minor improvements to existing technologies. A few examples of incremental innovations can be found when examining Scotch Tape:

• new double-sided tape
• new dispensers

These minor innovations lengthen the lifespan of the product, and lead to more sales.

A full innovation is an innovation that is truly original. These are extremely rare in product development. An example of a full innovation would be the telephone when it first came out. While these types of innovations are true game-changers, they are almost impossible to come up with

How to Innovate the MIT way
A huge part of the course at MIT is teaching students to recognize the sources of innovation. A great example of innovation is the skateboard. While nobody has officially been credited with creating the skateboard, it is known how the innovation was conceived. The skateboard was actually invented by children. They thought it would be fun to attach roller-skate wheels to the bottom of boards. They had an idea, and they built it themselves (because nobody else had met that need in the marketplace). Shortly after, skateboards were being manufactured by companies. The companies didn't come up with the idea however; the children did. The innovation occurred because they built it themselves. Skateboards could actually be viewed as a full innovation

Another example would be roller-blades. Roller-blades would be an incremental innovation, because they were based largely on roller-skates. The innovators (Scott and Brennan Olson) wanted a rollerskate that was more akin to an ice skate. They went ahead an mounted wheels on hockey skates. With that, the roller-blade design was born

MIT teaches their students to recognize an unmet need, and recognize what a solution would entail. This ties in nicely with one of Guy Kawasaki's best pieces of advice: "Design like a God". When you design like a God (free of constraints), you can usually find a way to bring the results to reality. In the case of the skateboard and roller-blades, the solution didn't require anything expensive, or highly technical; it only required the recognition that a solution was possible. With that, the innovators solved their own problem

You've Already Innovated
Believe it or not, you've probably already done a fair amount of innovating without even realizing it. Have you ever created a macro in Microsoft Excel? Or created some kind of a special rack to hold all your tools? These are all examples of innovations. Innovations occur all the time when you solve your own problem. One of my more memorable innovations was a small computer program I wrote about a decade ago. The program held a collection of my best excuses. Whenever someone called with an invitation that I wanted to decline, I would consult the program, and have a random excuse generated. I created the program because I could never think of anything on the spot. So I solved my own problem

For best results, try to solve a problem that affects more than just you. The bigger the problem you solve, the larger the potential consumer base you can sell it to. Always try to base your business around solving a large, and important problem. If your innovation can accomplish that, you'll have a chance at a fantastically successful business

Please press Tweet if you enjoyed this!  Tweet

Prefer Facebook? Click to Like this!        

Ask a group of women the question: "Does size matter?" and you'll get varying responses. Ask any Venture Capitalist, and you'll get a definitive answer every time: "Yes"

But why do Venture Capitalists believe new businesses are more likely to succeed in larger markets? And why do they believe it so much, that most of the big firms won't even consider funding new ventures that target tiny markets?

In fact, VC's love to key in on a special type of market. They believe that this particular type of market offers the highest chances of success; and statistically, it does. Knowing that, wouldn't it make sense to pursue a startup that fits into the market that makes VC's drool?

High Growth, Large-Size Markets
This is the optimal breeding ground for business success. You might have heard this before, but have you actually considered why this particular market is the best choice? It's not as obvious as it seems

There are 4 big advantages to launching a business in a high growth large-size market:

1. High-growth markets lack dominant companies
2. It's cheaper to get into a high growth market than an established one
3. The knowledge needed to partake in the industry is less than an established one
4. You can earn more sales from the same amount of work (when compared to a smaller industry)

How these 4 factors apply to you (Yes, you personally)
Let's look at how these factors can benefit your business. In the first point above, we note that there are few (if any) dominant companies in new markets. This is a huge benefit to you as an entrepreneur. Just try to get into the laptop product market right now. Immediately, you'll find yourself up against Dell and HP. They have massive advertising budgets, and huge factories. Good luck. But if you went after an emerging market (such as cloud computing), you'll find far fewer companies. It's a much fairer playing field

The second point notes that it's cheaper to enter an emerging market than it is to get into an established one. Why? Because in a new market, you aren't being forced to match up with established players. Let's go back to the previous example of manufacturing laptops. If you want to enter the laptop product market, you'll need to advertise. Unfortunately, you're up against brands that have been advertising for years. Customers already know the dominant players, and therefore those companies can actually spend less and get a better return on their advertising budget than you can

Being a late entrant into an established industry is a lot like switching schools halfway through the school year. It's harder to make friends because the other students have already established relationships. You'll have to work a lot harder to get invited to a party (or acquire customers)

The third point above deals with knowledge. It's easier to get into an industry that is new, because you'll be starting at more or less the same level as everyone else. Take aerospace design as an example. If you want to get in on that industry now, it will be very tough. The companies that are already there have been building up their knowledge for decades; that's a serious barrier to entry. But what about clean-tech? It's easier to enter clean-tech because you'll be up against companies that are either new, or only a few years old. Therefore, the knowledge gap is smaller

The last point above deals with sales. Simply put, if you're going to do the work, why not have more people waiting to buy it? It takes the same amount of work to be a massage therapist in a downtown office, as it does to be a massage therapist in a rural area of the suburbs. The difference though, is that you'll have a lot more clients in the downtown office. Markets are the same. It's usually not much harder to create a product for a large market than it is to create for a small one. Go after the big markets, and you'll have a greater chance of succeeding

Please press Tweet if you enjoyed this!  Tweet

Prefer Facebook? Click to Like this!        

In this edition of Entrepreneur Software, we examine the free Social CRM tool called Rapportive. Rapportive has smashed onto the scene because of 3 big reasons:

1. It works well. REALLY well
2. It's easy to use
3. It's completely FREE

Straight to the point: What Rapportive does
Rapportive replaces the ads panel of your GMail account with an abundance of info about your contacts. But this isn't just any info. Rapportive displays each contact's biographical info, social media accounts (are they on Twitter, Facebook?), and even their recent Tweets. It's like a miniature Social CRM, and it's free

How Rapportive can Help your Business Immediately
Rapportive answers the following questions about your contacts/leads/prospects:

• Who are they? What do they look like?
• Do they currently have a problem your business could solve?
• Are they in your area? If so, you can arrange a face to face meeting
• What do they do for a living? (As a bonus, it even includes their LinkedIn Profile)

The more you know about your customers/leads, the more effectively you can communicate with them. This is what Rapportive is all about.

To illustrate how useful Rapportive can be, I'll provide an easy example. Let's pretend you own a marketing company. Now, suppose one of the leads in your contact list posts a question on their Twitter account. Thanks to Rapportive, you can see this in the toolbar (through their Recent Tweets). Let's say it's a simple marketing question about how to track a campaign in Google Analytics. Realizing that this is in your domain of expertise, you take the time to explain to them how to accomplish this. By answering their question, you can greatly enhance your rapport with them(it's no coincidence that the software is called Rapportive). This improved Rapport can can end up transforming them from a lead into a customer. Without Rapportive, you probably wouldn't have even known that this particular person was on Twitter, let alone seen their question. This is just one example of how you can leverage Rapportive


What's the catch?
There is none. The only things to remember are that you need a Gmail account, and Firefox (it runs as a free Firefox plugin). If you don't have a gmail account, just sign up for one and import your contacts from whatever mail system you're using. If you're not using Firefox (you should be), just download it (along with the Rapportive plugin) and you'll be off and running


Where To Get the Goods
Unlike a lot of entrepreneur software, everything you need for Rapportive is free. You can download everything from these links:

Get a Gmail Account Here
Download Firefox Here
Get the Rapportive Plugin Here

Please press Tweet if you enjoyed this!  Tweet

Prefer Facebook? Click to Like this!        

Marketing videos: There's a million out there, and most are really not very helpful; I'm convinced the one below is

I've always avoided content from Seth Godin because I've seen too many people praising him without actually generating results from his advice. However, after browsing through some TED Talks (which are must-views for any entrepreneur), I decided to give him a chance. The video below is outstanding

Seth simplifies what it means to stand out, and how you need to think in this new digital age. It's not enough to just be really good anymore; now you have to be different

But what does it mean to be different? And why is it so important? In the old days, you could interrupt people enough on TV, radio, or email, and make them aware of your brand. Nowadays, all of those mediums have become ineffective. Many people use TiVo to skip through commercials on TV; email spam filtering has become much more advanced; and radios are largely being replaced by portable music devices and satellite (commercial free) radio

On top of all of that, consumers themselves have become increasingly proficient at blocking out any ads in their day to day lives. Scientists say that people see 3000 adds a day; can you remember 100 of the ads you saw yesterday? Probably not. So you need to make sure your business isn't producing one of these 3000 forgettable ads. You need to start thinking differently

If you're going to watch a marketing video this weekend, make sure it's this one; it's one of the best I've seen in a while. Check it out below:

Please press Tweet if you enjoyed this!  Tweet

Prefer Facebook? Click to Like this!