Invention

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Source

Kevin Kelly has been described as the ‘Most Interesting Man In The World’.

He was an editor of the Whole Earth Review, and then founding executive editor of Wired Magazine.

I’ve quoted this particular insight a lot over the years, and always attributed it to Kevin Kelly, but I’m unable to find the original source.

This builds on the idea of their being four stages to the development of a market:

In the beginning the most important thing is technology. We’re trying to discover what it is possible to make, and what is the best way to make it.

However, as soon as there is competition, the most important thing is features. It becomes less about what the technology does and much more about what the customer wants or needs to use the technology to do.

That continues to be true for as long as customers still care about missing functionality. Once the various competing products and services in a market have feature parity, then the differentiator becomes experience. The question is: how does it make customers feel? And, this is often more about subjective things like brand and design.

Finally, once customers can no longer tell the difference between different options then we reach the stage where the product or service has become a commidity and the only differentiator is price. The most successful products at this point will be those that can be produced efficiently at scale.

So,

1. Technology (until there is competition)
2. Features (while customers still care about missing functionality)
3. Experience (for as long as customers can tell the difference between different options)
4. Price (once it’s a commodity)

When we’re talking about the person who invents something we’re talking about the first stage.

When we’re talking about the person (or more likely team) who works out what that thing is for we’re talking about the second stage.

When we’re talking about the person (or, again, team) who makes the experience of using the thing delightful and remarkable, and in the process makes it desirable, we’re talking about the third stage.

When we’re talking about the person (actually almost certainly in this case team) who makes it cheaper to make the thing at scale, then we’re talking about the fourth and final stage.

Kevin’s point (assuming it was him who said this) is that each of those stages require different skills and likely different people.

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