Ideas are the lifeblood of businesses of any size. But more than that, good ideas are the catalysts of business growth. While a bad idea can do a lot to harm a company, especially in the early startup stages, a truly great idea can open up new growth potential that’s usually covered up by a blind spot commonly referred to as “business development.”
A growth-ready good idea can be anything from a new business practice to further development of an already existing business concept. These ideas don’t necessarily come easily. There’s usually a great deal of risk involved. But the bravest business visionaries consistently prove that the risk of innovation is worth it when their companies strike gold with a new idea.
Disruption as an Art Form
In this new era of business innovation, disruption is an art form. When visionaries have a new idea, they have to be able to quickly implement them, causing a disturbance in the traditional workflow. Some of the tech industries leading startups are built on this model of constant innovation.
Pure Storage: An Example of Disruptive Innovation that Led to Business Growth
· The Company – The enterprise storage company was founded in 2009 by a team of former Veritas and Yahoo executives. The company was built on the idea that enterprise-class data storage can be better and more efficient. The only thing they had to do was slightly re-imagine enterprise-level array storage technology.
· The Problem – Historically, storage arrays – mainly consisting of multiple storage drives in a single system – were primarily comprised of hard disk storage modules. These are the traditional spinning disk hard drives commonly used in desktops and laptops of yesteryear, and this is precisely the problem.
· The Solution – The lifespan and overall performance of a hard disk is dramatically shorter and slower than solid state or flash-based drives. So, their solution was to build storage arrays made entirely of solid state drives. Not only that, but Pure Storage used slightly cheaper technology to build these drives. The result is high-powered storage arrays that any mid to enterprise-level organization can afford to implement into their already-existing data management system.
· The Result – When you come up with an idea that’s both amazing and effective, people with money take notice. This is exactly what happened with Pure Storage. In fact, multiple key investors in the Silicon Valley scene – namely Greylock, Index Venture, Redpoint Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures – have all come together with a round of capital to help Pure Storage launch an explosive expansion campaign, as well as promote expansion efforts in the European markets.
Conclusion
With all of this in mind, it’s tempting to think that every good idea is going to generate a lot interest and buzz from venture capital firms all over the world. This may or may not be the case. But if you’re only thinking in terms of funding, you may never get off the ground. It’s better to view your business as a mechanism for problem solving. The truth is that every industry and every company can do its job better. There will always be a better solution to a common problem in every industry. The key is to position your company a way that it actually becomes a brilliant enough solution for people to take notice.
