About innovation and how it can be destroyed

Kimmo Huosionmaa

Money is a good thing, but if you want to destroy innovation, you must do one bad decision. That is giving money to the team little bit too early. If a team is not ready for innovation and it inner pierces are not playing on the same team, the innovation in the team might die. If team members must race against together they will destroy all company or proto company. When the young person establishes new company they must realize that the investors are not angels. They don't give money for free. They want their investments back with heels. And when team collects new money, they must first make the product ready. After that, they can introduce that thing to investors.

The team is the most important thing in the innovation process, and a key element is that team members must trust each other. If they must be afraid to talk freely, without fear kickoffs, the team will work better than if somebody must afraid that he or she will kick off. If some member of the team will always yell to others and behaves like an asshole, that will poison all atmosphere of that team. The most vulnerable thing for team spirit is a person who plays something that he or she is not.

Another way to destroy innovation is that some member of the team will know that he or she will kick off in some day. When we remember that team spirit is very important for innovation, what kind of motivation will have a member who is totally out of the team? Does that person gives his or her full attention and does he or she deliver own ideas to others. I think that answer is “no", and that person probably does not even talk to other personnel of the group. Most of that person’s time goes with making new CV and job application for next job interview. That will not rise that kind of workers work spirit.

But why giving money too early makes bad things for innovation? When somebody is giving money for something that makes target society a firm. In the firm innovation is not free, because customers want profits. And if the product is not ready, that will cause stress for the members of a team. And if the customer or business angel gives money will that person cause race situation inside that group, because everybody wants money and profits from their product. When somebody wants to invest money to some company or product he or she wants to get outcomes from his or her investment.

So when business angel wants 20% profit that person wants 1,20 euros for every euro what that person gives to the company. And that makes stress to the team because they must have something to show on deadline. And that "something" must be something, what gives money to that person. If money doesn't come, that "angel" will get the team to court and begins debt collection, and that is a very unhappy situation for everybody.