How to Enhance Your Startup’s Performance Through Innovation

It is no secret that over the past few years startups and businesses alike have had to navigate their way through the disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. For many founders, this proved to be an opportune time to re-evaluate their business strategy and to find ways in which to enhance their competitive edge. With the continuous evolution of modern technology and business environments, innovation is something that founders should be considering more. In fact, research highlights a growing necessity for startups to continuously innovate to meet the demands of today’s diverse and global competitive climate. 

What is Innovation? 

Innovation is not just one brilliant idea; it is about turning new ideas and concepts into something that will create value. This may involve re-evaluating the way in which your startup operates, from your processes or the way that you communicate, to the development or refinement of new products and services. The innovation process is anything, but linear, it can be an incremental or radical process.  

Incremental Innovation

Incremental innovation exploits existing technology, processes, and business models to improve competitiveness within an existing market. 

Radical Innovation 

Radical innovation explores new technology and focusses on services, processes, or products with unique features. Though this form of innovation can be riskier, it also has the capacity to produce change or transform a service or product. 

Ways to Enhance Your Startup’s Performance

Innovation involves many stages and varying levels of involvement from founders to their startup team. If you own a startup, chances are you are already innovating within your startup. But could your startup be more innovative? And if so, how can you add an extra boost? 

Open Innovation 

In today’s business landscape, you are not tied down to your startup’s internal knowledge. Now you can acquire external inventions or processes and crowdsource your startup’s internal tasks by outsourcing them. This creates the opportunity for fresh perspectives and adds value opportunities for other companies. This process of collaboration and innovation sharing is called ‘open’ innovation.

Discovery & Prototyping 

Through radical innovation your venture can collaborate with other businesses, research centres, and industry experts to deepen your startup’s knowledge. Prototyping, the process of creating and testing products and services, can also assist in discovering new ways to enhance your startup’s performance and offering.

Innovation Mindset

An innovation mindset should start at the top with your management team. According to research, startups with strong startup innovation cultures have founders that support and dedicate resources to experimentation and knowledge acquisition. These startups tend to outperform their counterparts with similar offerings.

Innovation Strategy

Issues tend to arise when founders look at implementing innovative practices without an accompanying strategy. Your innovation strategy will inform your goals and how your finances and resources should be allocated. When developing an innovation strategy for your startup, you should determine your desired outcome, from the development of a new product, the expansion of your market share or the recruitment of a skilled team. 

Need Help? Contact Us 

At Allied Legal, we work with startups to protect their innovations. From licensing and intellectual property agreements to patents, our startup lawyers at Allied Legal can help. You can speak with one of our startup lawyers by giving us a call on 03 8691 3111 or sending us an email at hello@alliedlegal.com.au.