Trend Timing — The Innovator's Secret Weapon

Aug 14, 2014 | Anthony Mills

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Many successful innovations succeed because they correctly address emerging trends.   These trends can be driven by a whole host of factors – technology, evolving lifestyles (e.g. urbanization, gentrification, etc.), economic events, political events, government regulations, and so on.   Sometimes these trends can be seen coming from afar (e.g. wearable technology), and sometimes they remain nascent until "actuated" by a particular event that creates a new market.   Such events can include the introduction of an innovative new product or service that preempts public knowledge of the need – cases in point are iTunes and the Nest Learning Thermostat.

On one scale, these trends emerge slowly... typically over the course of several years.   On another scale, these trends emerge quickly... typically over the course of only a few years (you get the point here... there is a matter of perspective to be had).   Regardless of one's perspective, the astute student of the world can develop a good sense of where these trends have come from, where they are today, and where they are headed.   The more challenging piece of the puzzle, however, is getting a handle on how fast they are emerging (which is not always steady or linear).   This brings us to the subject of trend timing and innovation strategy.

When looking out across the near-term and far-term horizons to plan out short-term and long-term product strategies, one has to pay particularly careful attention to the relevant trends and to the pace with which they are emerging.   This is not overly difficult in the case of short-term strategies, but it does present a challenge when thinking about the long-term innovation strategy.   What one must succeed at is quite simply this... intersecting each trend at the right time with the right offering and the right business model.   Being off either way – either too early or too late – can introduce significant risks.   Let's take a look at each of these in turn.

Many new-to-the-world offerings have failed simply because they came to market too soon.   They intersect at points where there has not yet been the chance to observe the trend enough that the right business model is understood.   And so being early can be equivalent to being wrong to the extent that it means you come to market with the wrong business model.   And too often, particularly where startups are involved and there are no existing brands and offerings to fall back on, the farm has been bet on such business models, only to find out they were wrong.   AskJeeves? was too early; Google was on time.   WebTV was too early; Roku was on time.   GO Corporation was too early; Palm Pilot and iPhone were on time.   LetsBuyIt was too early; Groupon was on time.   LoudCloud was too early; Box and Dropbox were on time.   And on and on this list goes.   So being early ultimately becomes a matter of risk management... it is okay to be ahead of your time, but it is not okay to bet the farm on it.   To counter this, one has to level-set their expectations to a realistic point, which is done by matching risk levels with understanding levels.   One has to understand what the adoption rate is going to be and remain prepared in the meantime to manage existing businesses, brands, and offerings accordingly, and to pivot on the innovation as their learnings evolve (which requires a certain amount of headroom to do).   In fact, actively playing in a "sandbox" area of a market is an excellent means of generating "boots on the ground" insights around a market, so long as the investment is manageable and does not put your company at unrecoverable risk.   Case in point... Google Glass is an endeavor that has taken on an early intersection point but has done so realistically.   No farms were bet, and Google has done an outstanding job of seeding the trend, creating buzz to accelerate it, and at the same time priming itself for when this trend finally does hit its stride.   When that day arrives Google will have figured out the right business model for the market.   An alternative approach, which has an entirely different risk profile, is to let your competitors do the "early playing" and carefully observe their results so as to learn from their mistakes prior to making an investment yourself.   This avoids the risk of a sunk investment, but incurs the risk of missing any first-mover advantages.   Both are valid approaches to disruptive innovation.

A related pattern one might observe from the list of companies above is that successful innovators often make their climb to the top on the backs of those who came before them and failed.   In other words, they watch and learn from these others' mistakes so that they know what not to do, better informing a right path into the market.   The mountain that successful innovators stand atop is built upon many dead bodies.

On the opposite side of this situation, many new-to-the-world innovations have failed because they came to market too late, when compared to other alternatives that had emerged.   In his fantastic accounting of such an event, Tracy Kidder recounts in his quintessential 1981 book The Soul of A New Machine how despite investing all it had to give, Data General Corporation ultimately met its demise by falling behind IBM in the race to the top of the 1970s microcomputer empire.   It was a case of too little, too late, despite the "innovations" they had developed.

Thus, this problem works both ways.   Intersect too early and you could be wrong; intersect too late and you could be irrelevant.

When comparing too-early with too-late, there is no one right or wrong answer; both can be bad.   Which one carries the greatest risk will depend entirely on the specific market, company, and brand.   Many of the too-late endeavors survive, but fail to realize good returns on their investments, as they are left to "pick up the crumbs falling from the table."   Sometimes, however, they manage to rebound and catch up through successive generations of an offering.   After all, Microsoft was late to market with a web browser long after the success of Netscape Navigator, but that is all forgotten history now.

Ultimately the goal is to be right on time... to bring to market innovations whose maturity level matches the point at which they intersect a trend curve.   This often means waiting for just the right moment to introduce a new innovation, so that you know it will be "right".   This is the essence of trend timing.   Proper trend timing requires three things: 1) understanding the relevant trends at a very deep, nuanced level (down to specific user psychographics); 2) understanding each trend's pace of emergence ; and 3) carefully planning new offerings to intersect with these trends at precisely timed points... the points optimal for each offering and its underlying business model.   This is Apple's apparent tactic with the Apple Watch.   Apple understands where we are on the wearables trend curve and is carefully timing the product launch for a specific intersection point on this curve.   Accordingly, it is taking its time to do it "right" rather than rushing something to market just so it can sit on store shelves next to Pebble and Samsung Gear.   This is admittedly somewhat counter to the "always first to market" philosophy, but while first to market does matter in many cases, it does not in all, such as with these immature market trends.

Trend timing is not something that can be reacted to at the last minute.   It is something that is best done with as much foresight and planning as possible, such that one can plan backwards from these points and, to the extent possible, bake in normal development cycles.   It is also useful to have a finger on the pulse of competitors' cadences, so as to predict how closely your respective offerings will match these intersection points.

The final takeaway is this... successful innovators understand the power of trend timing.   It is their secret weapon.   They know the pitfalls of intersecting too early (being wrong) and of intersecting too late (being irrelevant), and they have mastered the art and science of intersecting at just the right time.

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