A few days ago, I came across an article that talked about Google's 8 pillars of innovation. Number 2 was the one that struck me:
We know, for instance, that we have a large demand for our product, but that's a demand given that we sell once a week. If we were to invest in the trailer, we would be selling twice a week, in the future I'd hope that we would be selling every day. But how do we know that the strong demand we have now won't drop down (to a point where the business is no longer self sufficient) once we start selling more frequently? And if the idea is to only sell twice a week in the long run, do we even need something as large as a trailer to do so? Another point that got me a little worried was the fact that we don't know for sure what the future IA class will want to do with BlendZ. Therefore, although the trailer fits the the needs for the business we envision to perfection, will it be of the same use to those who take on the project next semester? My last point of worry is commitment. When the end of the semester came along last year, and we hadn't achieved our goal of having this permanent location up and running, most of us said that we would have no problem working on BlendZ over the summer. We're almost four weeks into our summer break, however, and I think very few of us have really stayed true to what we said at the end of last year.
So if we have no "true" projections as to the future demand of our product, if we have little assurance of the future vision of the business, and if we can't dedicate some time of our summer vacations now to continue working on BlendZ, is investing such a large quantity of money into a trailer really worth it?
As much as I'd love to say yes, my reasoning keeps telling me no. So today I took some time to find an alternative, a smaller step towards our bigger vision.
Together with Drew, we've been thinking of something very similar. Picture this: a smoothie cart!
Google's 3rd pillar of innovation is to "strive for continual innovation, not instant perfection". And I think that's something to keep in mind. It's very unlikely that if we were to purchase a trailer, or even a smoothie cart, we would get it right the first time around. As we use it we would come to think of ways in which we can improve it's design. By purchasing a food cart, however, we have space for continual innovation because we can afford iterations (from what I've researched, food carts range between 2,000 to 4,000 soles). As a result, we're not only able to improve the design of our food cart, but we're able to test out several of our business's uncertainties without making such a risky investment.
You know how when you really love something, be it an idea or a product, you stick to it until the end, and are somewhat blinded to consider other options. I think that happened to a lot of us with the trailer, and I know it happened to me. But when I look at BlendZ right now, I see a trailer as part of the "think BIG" aspect of the business, and a food cart as the "act SMALL" step to getting us there.