Conventional wisdom is that blockbuster innovations are most likely found in new product categories. Business celebrities like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg -- three college dropouts who made billions with stunning innovations that ignited whole new industries -- reinforce this perception.
This conventional wisdom is even codified in business theory. In the multimillion-copy bestseller, “Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant,” two business school professors argue that “lasting success comes not from battling competitors but from creating ‘blue oceans’-- untapped new market spaces ripe for growth.” Businesses are encouraged to avoid “bloody ‘red oceans’ of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool.”
One of the insights from an excellent new book by John Sviokla and Mitch Cohen is that the vast majority of today’s wealthiest persons made their billions by ignoring this notion. The book also offers important guidance on how both entrepreneurs and established companies should innovate.
In The Self-Made Billionaire Effect: How Extreme Producers Create Massive Value, Sviokla and Cohen found that 80% of the self-made billionaires that they studied made their fortunes in contested market spaces.
Their research sample consisted of 120 self-made billionaires (as opposed to those with inherited wealth) operating in relatively transparent and competitive markets. These 120 were randomly selected from self-made billionaires on Forbes’ Billionaire List, adjusted to mirror the larger list’s geographic and industry distribution.
Sir James Dyson, for example, did not stop reimagining the vacuum cleaner just because Hoover got there first and the market was crowded. Instead, Dyson went through 5,127 iterations to develop a production-ready design of his dual cyclone vacuum.
Sir James Dyson with his Dyson Vacuum
If the term had existed, the board of Dyson’s company at that time might have labeled Dyson’s effort an ill-conceived “red ocean” strategy. It rejected his request for funding to produce the vacuum -- even though Dyson owned a third of the company. Dyson was told:
Sir James Dyson with his Dyson Vacuum
If the term had existed, the board of Dyson’s company at that time might have labeled Dyson’s effort an ill-conceived “red ocean” strategy. It rejected his request for funding to produce the vacuum -- even though Dyson owned a third of the company. Dyson was told:
If there really was a better type of vacuum cleaner, then surely one of the big manufacturers would be making it.Undeterred, Dyson had to set up a new company to manufacture the G-Force Dual Cyclone vacuum cleaner. It would go on to capture immense market share -- as high as 50% in the UK -- and generate billions in sales. Svioka and Cohen offer numerous other case studies of self-made billionaires who succeeded in markets that “would by any measure be considered ‘red.’” Here is a partial list from their thoroughly researched book.
- John Paul DeJoria, a haircare products salesman, and celebrity stylist Paul Mitchell successfully launchedJohn Paul Mitchell Systems into the populated market of high-end hair care.
- Bharti Enterprises founder Sunil Mittal got his start importing known, legacy technologies such as portable generators and telephone handsets into India.
- Sara Blakely’s Spanx shapewear prospered in a hosiery market dominated by L’eggs and Hanes.
- Eli Broad built affordable starter homes without basements in part because he saw others doing it successfully.
- Glen Talyor grew a mom-and-pop local printing shop into one of the largest custom printing companies in the U.S. by, at first, focusing on the immensely competitive and fragmented industry for wedding stationery and related accessories.
