How to develop an innovation strategy in your startup?

Unlike large corporations, a startup must have an innovation strategy in its DNA if it wants to survive and “rub shoulders” with large multinationals.

The innovation processes in a startup must be fully aligned with the business strategy, and in some sectors, the business strategy is the one that adapts to the innovation strategy.

Ultimately, innovation should be part of a startup's culture and a differentiating element.

That said, it seems that a startup should have an R&D department, an Innovation Director and cutting-edge technological resources, but in reality innovation is not about this.

Innovation is not generated only with disruptive technologies or design products, but innovation strategies can go further and be implemented within the different areas of the company and its processes. After all, the ultimate function of innovation is to create value mechanisms so that the company can be more competitive, and this can be applied both to the launch of a new product and to innovate within a key company process.

Therefore, the innovation strategy in a startup that is in its early stages can be implemented without leaving many resources. For example, until a while ago, Google left employees 20% of their time to work on their own projects and as a result of this innovation strategy Gmail was born.

To plan an innovation strategy, it is important to consider several factors:

— The innovation strategy must have clear objectives, you must know why you want to innovate and what repercussions the strategy will have inside and outside the company.

— The strategy development process has to be open, that is, it has to take into account your workers, clients, external advisors, collaborators, not clients, etc. No assumptions should be ruled out.

— Only the systematic practice of innovation guarantees success. It's very difficult to achieve innovative results if you don't work on them constantly.

— The greater the risk taken in the innovation strategy, the greater the rewards.

— The control of innovation processes must be determined by the fulfillment of milestones. Even so, there will always come a point where you have to take “a leap of faith” and believe in the project without being absolutely certain of its results.

The normal thing in any company is to think first of being efficient rather than innovating, and this makes perfect sense, but we must try to see innovation within the company as a factor for improvement in all areas, costs, processes, services, quality, etc...