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By PASCAL FINETTE

The Heretic is a free dispatch delivering insights into what it takes to lead into & in the unknown. For entrepreneurs, corporate irritants and change makers. Raw, unfiltered and opinionated.

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Aug 31st, 2015 Share: Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn

How Breakthrough Products Are Made

So far in my career I had the great fortune to witness a couple of breakthrough products being built, introduced to the market and being adopted by consumers.

There is little more exciting than being part of a team which brings something truly paradigm-shifting to market. Something which is not just marginally better than the next product in its category but leaves a lasting legacy.

eBay completely flattened the marketplace and allowed everyone to sell online. Firefox pushed the web forward at a time when all the big players have given up on it. And Singularity University might very well be redefining how we are thinking about the future of technology.

Over the years I thought a lot about what needs to be true for breakthroughs to happen. Yesterday I read the following quote in “Becoming Steve Jobs” and it hits the nail on the head:

“Most breakthrough products result from a long cycle of hit-and-miss prototypes, the steady accumulation of features, and a timely synthesis of existing technologies.”

Breakthrough products — and really anything meaningful — are the result of hard work, lots and lots of experimentation and excellent timing. Which is the reason why it’s so incredibly hard to built something meaningful and big — regardless how easy it looks like from the outside.

And it’s so well worth it…


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