Historically, virtually all disruptive innovation has happened by accident. Even though there is a distinct pattern to disruption that the theory describes, before Christensen observed and synthesized the mechanics of the pattern we weren't aware of it, and it certainly hasn't been obvious how to create that pattern on purpose.
After all, if you used theory to build:
- an inferior product
- with a low price
- targeting an undesirable market that incumbents will run from rather than fight for
you'd have a product that bears the hallmarks of disruption as described in The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. But you wouldn't have any guarantees that your product is a disruptive innovation. In fact, it could be that you’ve simply built a crappy product that no one wants.
Strikingly, although many have tried to use Christensen's theory to design disruptive products, it's noteworthy that Clay's books were not written with that purpose in mind. In fact, he writes in the introduction to The Innovator's Dilemma that his research and writing was motivated by the desire to help executives “do what is right for the near term health of their established businesses, while focusing adequate resources on the disruptive technologies that ultimately could lead to their downfall”. In other words, his goal was to help industry incumbents recognize and avoid disruption.
About 2 years ago, I set out to do exactly the opposite.I wanted to create a handbook for entrepreneurs, startup founders, and marketers of potentially disruptive products that would help them to disrupt markets on purpose.
After a long gestation, that book "Disruption by Design: How to Create Products that Disrupt and then Dominate Markets" has arrived. (if you hurry, you might still find some sites selling it at pre-release prices -- take advantage because in a few days, if not sooner, the price will go up significantly).
Disruption by Design is intended to be a self-contained book that guides you through all of the key things you need to know, from a quick review of the most important elements of the theory, to how to predict market disruption, to creation of product and marketing strategy with disruptive potential, to designing a disruptive business model and ultimately, how to go to market, disrupt, and stay on top for the long term.
If you want to build disruptive products on purpose, you need this book
I don't often "sell" in this space, but I did want to let my readers know why I'd been absent for a long while, and also beat my chest a little today. I've worked hard to distill the things I've learned about disruption from working as a consultant in the field into a guide which is easy to read and follow. I did that because if we're ever going to reinvigorate our economy, we need 10x more disruption and we need it 10x faster than we're currently innovating. We need disruptive innovation because it is the economic engine of growth that moves us forward, and creates jobs and wealth.
Over the coming months, I'll be highlighting some of the key ideas from my book in this space, and hope you'll join me in discussing how to create disruptive products by design.
To learn more about the book, visit this page: Disruption by Design.
Update: The People Have Spoken
It's been very gratifying to get lots of positive feedback about my book. The widget below collects review comments from a variety of sites, which I thought might be a useful update to share here. You can click on the profile that's displayed to learn more about the reviewer, and follow or connect with them.
