How Failure Taught Edison to Repeatedly Innovate

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If he hadn’t failed, Thomas Edison might not have become America’s most well-known and prolific innovator. Like most entrepreneurs, when Edison first started his career, he was certain he had observed a fundamental problem he could solve. Specifically, Edison noticed that whenever Congress voted on an issue, each senator would stand one by one and call out his vote. To Edison, the inefficiency of such a system was absolutely stunning, and he realized that he could invent a system to quickly tally all the votes and skip the unnecessary and wasteful step of calling out votes.

Edison Failed When He Followed the Traditional Model

Like any good entrepreneur following the traditional product-based model, Edison jumped right in, built the system, and then brought his automatic vote-tally system to Congress. Imagine Edison bounding up the steps to the congressional offices eager to demonstrate how he had solved such a significant problem and excited for the payoff at the end of his hard work. Now picture his outright surprise when the Senators listened and then bluntly rejected his invention—they didn’t want it. Like most entrepreneurs, Edison was sure he had observed a real market need, and he must have been incensed at the inability of his “customers” to understand how he had saved them hours and hours by changing an inefficient and silly voting process. But the truth was that Edison hadn’t validated his assumption that the Senators actually wanted an automatic voting system. In fact, as it turned out, there was a great deal of politics and posturing in the calling of votes, and the Senators weren’t about to give up that system.

Lesson 1: Validate Your Assumption about What Customers Will Buy

Fortunately, rather than letting the failure destroy him, Edison recovered and in the process discovered two very important principles that allowed him to become one of the most famous serial innovators of all time. First, he learned the crucial need to understand your customers—specifically the job they are trying to get done and why. After that experience, Edison reframed all his future efforts with one simple phrase, “I never want to build something that nobody wants to buy.”

Lesson 2: Iterate to Discover What Customers Will Buy

Second, Edison learned the value of rapidly iterating to get to the solution customers needed. For example, in developing a commercially viable light bulb, Edison actually went through over ten thousand prototypes before getting it right. Had Edison followed the traditional model of product-development model of writing a product specification, building a product, then trying to sell it, his competitors would have beat him by decades. Later Edison became famous for saying “I have not failed 10,000 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.” You will find a way that works too and I’m excited to give you more specific tools, templates, and practices to guide you to your big innovation.

Innovators Change the World—Keep Changing It

As a final note (forgive me for the aside), let me raise my glass to all of you who innovate—as entrepreneurs, as managers, as individuals, as families, or whoever you are. Innovators change the world, in small ways and big ways. I love to see you do it and if I can help, great. If I just get to see you do it and be inspired, wonderful. Whether you find a better way to improve your life or a way to improve the lives of many, keep trying. You will change your life and mine for the better. I can’t wait to see it. If you don’t think you are an entrepreneur or an innovator, I’ll put my money down that you are and can be.