Seth Godin has an interesting post about ‘More perfect’. http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/05/more_perfect.html
Seth talks about how most people in the US can’t cook and it would seem like a good idea to provide cooking instruction to this large population of non-cooks. The truth, he reveals, is that it is much better to sell cooking instruction to people who can already cook well and want to improve.
I discovered something similar to this phenomenon when I analyzed the market for creativity tools. The majority of the people that bought MetaMemes (the early adoption version) were creative professionals. My initial thought was that a creativity tool would be bought by people wanting to learn to be creative, but instead the market that latched on were people who were already creative and wanted to be more creative.
My next counter-intuitive insight came while creating the business plan for ThinkCube. We looked at our competitors to see how ThinkCube differentiated itself. I had created ThinkCube because I felt that there was something missing in the other creativity tools (well actually the reasons for creating a creativity tool are a little more complex and I will explain them in subsequent post). There are many things that ThinkCube did that other tools didn’t, but the really interesting part of my analysis was that many people seemed to buy multiple creativity tools. It didn’t seem to be an either/or decision. If you had an ‘innovation/creativity problem’ you tended to seek multiple solutions. Most people would consider buying the ‘Whackpack’ and the ‘Knowbrainer’ and the ‘ThinkPak’ and the ‘IDEO Method cards’ etc. all providing unique techniques and solutions.
Creativity seems to be a field where the more ‘tools’ you have the better. There is probably as many different ways to be creative as there are creative people. I used this insight to develop a stand alone tool that could also be used in conjunction with other tools and techniques. I personally still use Roger Von Oech’s WhackPack and the ‘Knowbrainer’ quite regularly. I love having a whole tool kit of techniques and as much as the ThinkCube filled a creative void for me, I never intended to replace these other tools. As I will explain in another post, I never really intended to create a creativity tool.
To summarize, not only is the ThinkCube aimed at people that are already creative and want to be more creative but it is also aimed at people that might already have another creativity tool. As Seth says, you are better off helping the perfect improve.
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