New England Product Group Blog

 Musings about product, tech, innovation, strategy & other topics


Neglect Innovation at Your Peril

Image credit Arek Socha/pixabay

Innovation is the seed of success for startups. Once they have a solution demonstrating product-market fit, the focus quickly turns to driving efficiency and growth.

Focusing on growth without innovation can sustain for a while. Everything can appear great. Sometimes for quite a long time. However, pursuing growth while neglecting innovation is fraught with peril. Eventually, it will catch up to a company. Sometimes companies innovate, but the innovation is perceived as a threat to the existing product and business. As a result, the innovation may be deferred or even shelved. That is shortsighted. Technology succession is inevitable. Rest assured that if your company doesn't implement innovations, another company will. As a result, they may even take over a market you established. 

Change is a certainty. Customer needs change, technologies evolve, and markets change - sometimes seemingly in the blink of an eye. Innovation was the genesis of your current success, and future innovation will ensure continued long-term success. Failure to innovate may clear the path for another company to supplant you and dominate a market you once ruled.


Originally published on Medium.