Innovations Don't Happen In Meetings

Early this year, I got into an argument with someone who claimed that innovation happens in person and that remote work is the enemy of that. Getting a bunch of people in a room and riffing off each other is a great way to innovate. I disagree. Innovation happens when you make it happen. Plain and simple.

Ideas Are Cheap

Jason and I have endless ideas on how to make YoPrint amazing. Anytime we get on a call in Slack or meet at trade shows, we generate hundreds of ideas. Unfortunately, the harsh reality is that these ideas are worthless unless we implement them, and implementation doesn't happen in meetings.

So, how do you innovate?

Just Do It™

If it's a one-man feature, someone has to take the initiative and do it. We can sound it off with the other person and see if there are any major issues, but otherwise, just do it. It helps to limit the discussion to one or two persons. More people = more opinions = more hurdles. A lot of time, whenever I see an avenue to improve the UI, I just do it, release it, and see what happens. Worse case scenario, we can just roll it back. I encourage my employees to do the same. See something, do something 😃

Don't worry! You will get better at identifying what's worth doing and what's not.

Prototype It

If it's a feature or idea that requires at least one other person to implement, the best way is to prototype it first. Just put together something and show the team that the idea is viable. If it's all good, we can quickly assign an additional engineer and commission the designer to assemble a design.

This is how we ended up releasing PDF Templates. I put together a prototype. Jason made a couple of suggestions. I had the designer work on the design. Jason finished the backend, and I tied up the front end. We shipped it out—all within 2 - 3 weeks, from ideations to realization.

Mock It

You also have the option to skip the prototype and create a mockup instead. For example, I usually use Balsamiq to put together a low-fidelity UI/UX workflow to flesh out the idea. I pitch it to Jason, and he adds whatever he thinks is missing. I will write a one-pager on how the feature should function in Notion.

Then, it's a simple matter of assigning the designer to convert the low-fidelity mockups into high-fidelity mockups. While the design is being cooked, the backend dev can start working on the APIs, and the frontend dev can roughly stitch together the UI/UX. We can update the UI with the new designs whenever the design is ready.

I usually test the new features to see if they flow well and make any tweaks or changes as needed. We then ship the software to production. This is how we can rapidly iterate through the software.

Generating Ideas != Innovation

But Anbin, didn't you generate the idea in a meeting. Doesn't that automatically imply that meetings are the reason for innovation?

The truth is that we didn't need those meetings to generate those ideas. Ideas are generated by simply observing what's happening around you. What are your customers saying? Why are people not using the software? Why do we have attrition? Why is someone choosing our competitors over us? What are our competitors doing? What are the latest technology and trends? All meetings provided were opportunities to regurgitate what we already know and seek validation. We are social creatures, after all.

Most of the time, Jason and I just rehash the same set of ideas every time we meet and talk. However, our to-do list for this year remained the same. The only meaningful time to change the trajectory was when we wrap up whatever we are working on right now.

A Note on the word "innovate"

I've grown to dislike the word "innovate." It's overused and has become another buzzword for the marketing guys. Whenever I encounter the word, it often comes across as insincere.

Our tagline used to be "innovating the printing software industry one customer at a time." Recently, we changed it to "Simple. Powerful. Affordable." which clearly tells our users what we stand for.

Closing Thoughts

Generating ideas is easy, and meetings are cathartic. But real innovation happens when you take action and make it happen. As Jeff Bezos says, "Have a bias for action."

PS: Yes, our website still has the old tagline, but we are very close to rolling out the new site! Fingers crossed 🤞