Innovation in Start-Ups vs. Big Corp

Chris Thompson

October 13, 2023

Innovation is one of the most overused buzzwords in business today. Innovation is a spectrum from finding a faster way to work to placing humans on Mars. We will talk about what Innovation is and is not and focus on how Start-ups tend to view innovation vs Big Corp. There are significant differences and we will uncover what they are and how to leverage the best of both.

Definitions:

• Creativity: The emotional process of seeing a better path clearly and telling others, a visionary. Seeing possibilities others cannot.
• Invention: The technical process to deliver tools to enable creativity, an engineer. Solving the same opportunities with different tools.
• Innovation: The business process of delivering the invention/creation to the user, a marketer.

Startup companies:

• Proud of innovative technology and product.
• Laser focused on one product/technology line.
• One product at a time.
• Long on tech talent, short on business talent.
• Scramblers.
• Pros:
  • Flexible and nimble
  • Mission driver
  • Passionate
• Cons:
  • Hyper-focused on product building and less on business building
  • Easily business distracted
  • Unicorn wishful thinking

Big companies:

• Innovation is a means to a goal.
• Laser focused on business results, not a path to achieve them.
• Multiple inputs, multiple outputs.
• Business talent is revered, tech talent is commoditized.
• Infrastructure drives strategy.
• Strategy drives roadmaps.
• Roadmaps drive product offerings.
• Pros:
  • Infrastructure
  • Process driven with goal oriented KPIs
  • Very focused on business results
• Cons:
  • Innovation results from sure thing bets
  • Many singles are better than a home run
  • Tiers bring tears

So, startups need to focus more on building a business in parallel with product development while big businesses need to create clear lines for development teams to run within and to reward them when they meet their goals.

Chris Thompson is strategic and creative Innovation and Technology Deployment leader with a proven track record of building products and solutions that do good in the world. He has worked in many industries from Home Appliances to Commercial and Industrial Refrigeration to Medical Devices with threads of IoT, Energy Management and Globalization woven throughout. Chris has been honored with CTO of the Year, an EDISON Gold Award and dozens of Patents.