Innovation, Disruption, and Startups are in synonymous with each other. When we talk about startups, we naturally start thinking about innovative products, disruptive technologies, and smart devices.
Startups are places where innovation takes place. With the introduction of emerging technologies like AI, IoT, and Blockchain, turning innovative ideas into reality has become much easier.
When you’re a team of 1 to 5 dedicated people, your startup is pretty much agile. You develop innovative products, test, and iterate until it becomes perfect for the launch.
However, as the startup grows, it starts loosing on its innovation side. When the startup receives round one or two of funding, the innovation phase starts to fade out. Now, you got to focus on increasing the team size, scale up the production, and work on to increase ROI. That’s where things start to fall apart.
Of course, funding is essential to scale up your business. However, to keep up with the expectations of the investors, startups focus too much on generating profits rather than innovation.
It is commonly noticed that 90% of startups fail within just two years of their conception. And, not being innovative is one of the primary reasons for the failure.
Why Your Startup Should Always be Innovative?
In the last year, 100 million new businesses were launched across the globe. When there’s a massive competition like this, you have to keep innovating to survive.
According to the reports:
- Approximately 11,000 new startups are launched every hour
- 84% of executives believe that innovation is essential for growth
- 83% of customers say that they are willing to pay more for innovative products
From the above numbers, it’s quite clear that your startup should always be creative to stay ahead of the competition and generate new streams of revenue.
How Constant Innovation Helps Startups and Small Businesses?
For every startup or small business, innovation and creative thinking should be part of the company’s DNA. Constant innovation increases the chances of business growth. It also helps you build efficient processes that lead to better productivity and performance.
Startups should keep generating and adopting new ideas to take advantage of the competitive edge.
Here’s how constant innovation can benefit startups and small businesses:
1. Stay Ahead of the Competition
Continuous innovation gives funded startups a competitive edge and helps them always stay at the top. There are numerous examples of companies that quickly grabbed the market and became leaders with the help of disruptive innovation, but failed to stay on top.
The main reason why these companies failed to retain their position is that they couldn’t keep up with the pace of innovation. Apple Inc. is the biggest example of this. Despite fierce competition, Apple remained an industry leader since its launch. However, today, the company is experiencing a decline in revenue due to a lack of innovation.
On the other hand, companies like Uber and Amazon have successfully managed to remain industry leaders. Right from the robust app to ridesharing facilities and premium cars, Uber is continuously innovating its products and services.
Despite being the most prominent e-commerce platform, Amazon is investing in building innovative cloud platforms and smart homes.
Constant innovation not only helps you remain industry leaders but also enables you to unlock several new opportunities for business.
2. Solve Problems and Improve Efficiency
Many times startups and small businesses get stuck into problems that don’t seem to go away. It requires out of the box thinking and creative solutions to solve particular problem areas in your business.
Startups that promote innovation and creativity can easily find solutions for hard-to-solve problems. As everyone in the team is focussed on improving the end product, it boosts the overall productivity and offers a huge benefit to your business.
Take, for example, Google. In each of their offices, Google has assigned a special day dedicated to experimentation and innovation. The Internet giant encourages employees to innovate and has an in-house incubation system to promote excellent ideas. Innovative products like Maps, Hangouts, etc. are all born out of their in-house team.
3. Create Entry Barriers for Competitors
Being always creative can surely take you to the top of the market and help you remain the market leader. However, remember, one good idea adds thousands of new followers. Your competitors can follow your plan and create tough competition for your business.
So, if you want to remain a market leader, you need always to keep thinking about the next step or the next innovation. This way you can stay far ahead of your competition.
4. Market Your Business
Innovative products or services help your business stand out from the crowd. It would help if you had creative ideas to always stay on top of the minds of your customers.
You can transform your existing products or services with innovations or develop a new business stream altogether. With innovation being at the center point of your business and marketing strategy, you can easily stand out and attract new customers.
5. Sustain the Competition with Big Companies
When your competition is with some of the big players in the industry, then innovation is the only ideal way to sustain. Big brands have the necessary resources at their disposal, and they can quickly adapt to new technologies. Enterprise-level businesses have easy access to bigger platforms.
To get a strong foothold against big companies, you need to nurture innovation and creativity in your startup.
It’s OK, Not to be an Innovation Lab
Well, innovation should be at the core of your startup. But, that doesn’t mean every funded startup out there has to be an R&D powerhouse. Google invested in innovative products long after it got a strong foothold. Facebook made React when it became a social networking giant.
It’s ok NOT to be an innovation lab. If you’re an early stage startup and have innovative ideas, you can always outsource the work to get the job done for you.
You can hire industry experts, like Imaginovation, to turn your innovative ideas into reality, so you can entirely focus on growing your funded startup.
We at Imaginovation help funded startups to shape their ideas and come up with the best possible solutions. If you’re a funded startup and have an idea, get in touch with us.
Top 10 Innovative Startups in the United States
| No. | Website | Value |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | [Airbnb](https://www.airbnb.com/) | $29.3 B |
| 2 | [Stripe](https://stripe.com/) | $22.5 B |
| 3 | [Pinterest](https://www.pinterest.com/) | $10.6 B |
| 4 | [Instacart](https://www.instacart.com/) | $7.6 B |
| 5 | [Slack](https://slack.com/) | $7 B |
| 6 | [Samsara](https://www.samsara.com/) | $3.6 B |
| 7 | [Flexport](https://www.flexport.com/) | $3.2 B |
| 8 | [Calm](https://www.calm.com/) | $1 B |
| 9 | [Mesosphere](https://mesosphere.com/) | $125 M – $300 M |
| 10 | [Noodle.ai](https://noodle.ai/) | ~$100 M |
Top 10 Funded Startups in NC That Always Keep Innovating
| No. | Startup | What They Do |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | [AvidXchange](https://www.avidxchange.com/) | The largest B2B payment network that helps companies pay their bills using automated, innovative technology. AvidXchange software accelerates approvals, reduces processing costs, and virtually eliminates paperwork. |
| 2 | [SmartSky Networks](https://www.smartskynetworks.com/) | SmartSky works with leading aerospace and technology partners to develop innovative, air-to-ground network, SmartSky 4G LTE. SmartSky network uses advanced beamforming technologies and patented spectrum reuse to significantly boost connectivity. |
| 3 | [Passport](https://www.passportinc.com/) | Passport is a mobile payment systems for parking and transit. With innovative solutions, this Charlotte-based startup is transforming the way cities manage their operations. |
| 4 | [nCino](https://www.ncino.com/) | Built by bankers for bankers, nCino streamlines all customer and employee interactions within a single cloud-based Bank Operating System that drives increased efficiency, transparency, profitability and regulatory compliance across all lines of business. |
| 5 | [Pendo](https://www.pendo.io/) | Pendo uses innovative technologies to gather insights from product usage patterns and user sentiment. This data helps application developers make better product decisions. Pendo makes your software lovable. |
| 6 | [PrecisionHawk](https://www.precisionhawk.com/) | PrecisionHawk has successfully became a market leader in developing and integrating commercial drone technology. It uses aerial technology to provide innovative aerial mapping, modeling, and inspection platform for the enterprise. |
| 7 | [Prescient](https://www.prescientco.com/) | Prescient is revolutionizing the building environment with the help of innovative model-centric BIM design platform. It is a technology and manufacturing company that offers cost-effective, faster and greener alternatives to the traditional building structures. |
| 8 | [Tresata](http://tresata.com/) | Tresata helps big businesses parse out the wealth of data it comes across and solve problems with it. Tresata is a little hard to understand as a company, however, it has successfully managed to raise $50m at a valuation of $1B. |
| 9 | [Payzer](https://www.payzer.com/) | Payzer is a mobile platform that helps contractors to efficiently manage their business. Its innovative mobile app allows you to take payments in the field and provide financing to the customers in seconds. |
| 10 | [Stratifyd](http://www.stratifyd.com/) | Stratifyd uses AI powered data analytics platform that analyzes and visualizes complex unstructured and structured data sets. The Stratifyd platform provides business leaders the deep intellectual business insights in minutes. |
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