Quotes about Disruption

They are always motivated to go up-market, and almost never motivated to defend the new or low-end markets that the disruptors find attractive. We call this phenomenon asymmetric motivation. It is the core of the innovator's dilemma, and the beginning of the innovator's solution.

Identifying disruptive footholds means connecting with specific jobs that people—your future customers—are trying to get done in their lives.

A new-market disruption is an innovation that enables a larger population of people who previously lacked the money or skill now to begin buying and using a product and doing the job for themselves.

the firms that led the industry in every instance of developing and adopting disruptive technologies were entrants to the industry, not its incumbent leaders.

Managers who confront disruptive technological change must be leaders, not followers, in commercializing disruptive technologies.

But in disruptive situations, action must be taken before careful plans are made. Because much less can be known about what markets need or how large they can become, plans must serve a very different purpose: They must be plans for learning rather than plans for implementation.

they reached as far upmarket as they could in each new product generation, until their drives packed the capacity to appeal to the value networks above them. It is this upward mobility that makes disruptive technologies so dangerous to established firms—and so attractive to entrants.

In dealing with disruptive technologies leading to new markets, however, market researchers and business planners have consistently dismal records.

That work led to my theory of disruptive innovation,1 which explains the phenomenon by which an innovation transforms an existing market or sector by introducing simplicity, convenience, accessibility, and affordability where complication and high cost have become the status quo—eventually completely redefining the industry.

In reality, spinning out is an appropriate step only when confronting disruptive innovation.

Disruptive technologies bring to a market a very different value proposition than had been available previously. Generally, disruptive technologies underperform established products in mainstream markets. But they have other features that a few fringe (and generally new) customers value. Products based on disruptive technologies are typically cheaper, simpler, smaller, and, frequently, more convenient to use.

Established firms attempt to push the technology into their established markets, while the successful entrants find a new market that values the technology.