Krug: The Elegance of Entrepreneurial Simplicity

As we screw down our entrepreneurial caps and try to imagine the idea that will supplant sliced bread as the next best thing, let’s begin with one isolated thought: Simplicity. Bread, after all, was good. Having it cut into slices for you made it great. Slicing the bread during the manufacturing process was an evolution rather than a revolution. It required looking at something that millions had seen before in a different way. To achieve this innovation, it required the entrepreneur to take a step back and examine the bread for what it was: A whole that was best delivered as the sum of its parts, divided into pieces that – aside from the ends – were approximately equal in size and presented to consumers in a logical way that would resonate.

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 (I promise this isn’t a story about slicing bread, but it would be remiss to not offer some history, so… The actual origins of sliced bread are – in all seriousness – fascinating, and worthy of a few moments of your time. Just a few quick highlights: Otto Rohwedder was credited in 1912 for having created the first machine that could slice bread. But the entrepreneur from Davenport, Iowa, saw his invention perish in a fire, and it wasn’t for another 16 years that a bakery in Chillicothe, Mo., perfected a method to commercially slice loaves. And during World War II, the government went after the sliced-bread industry because it consumed necessary resources that could be put toward the war effort.)

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We are surrounded by opportunities to innovate each day if we walk through life with our minds clear and our eyes open. The true entrepreneur isn’t a tourist in his or her own world. These people are equal parts curious and purposeful, willing to take apart the toaster – not necessarily to learn how it toasts, but rather because they possess a curiosity for considering how the machine might toast more efficiently. But in taking the toaster apart, there is much to be learned. And view that example purely as a metaphor for processes that are trusted and believed to be sound. The entrepreneur takes apart business systems, conventional thinking or anything else he or she can lock onto. Where we see this most prominently is across the new frontiers of our economy. We will continue to invent great things as a society, and have plenty of room to do so in the environmental, medical, pharmaceutical and technological space. But a garden hose that is one-fifth the weight of a conventional hose – as you see advertised on late-night television – is no modern marvel, even if it is made of space-age polymers. It probably won’t radically change the course of mankind. It won’t revolutionize the way that we tend to our gardens. But it will save substantial time for people who wish to transport water from Point A to Point B with consistency and speed, and those who no longer are able – or willing – to lift 10 pounds. It’s an innovation, and if it doesn’t sell a zillion units, it’ll sell two zillion units. So where does the next innovation in that isolation occur? For every retractable, lightweight hose that is purchased it would seem reasonable to believe that an existing hose would be obsolete. These hoses are destined for the recycle bin. The material of these hoses probably retains some residual value: The rubber, the metal fittings on each end, and the outer core certainly are worth something to someone. But who, and how valuable are they, and what would it cost to separate the three in a meaningful way so that they may be repurposed? All questions that entrepreneurs probably started examining the moment they saw the advertisement for the first lightweight collapsible hose advertised on late-night TV. And for them, their slicing of the bread began in that instant.

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The best entrepreneurs find simplicity amidst complexity, and have the gift of separating it in a meaningful way. Apple remains a shining example of this, and Google runs a close second. Apple is a consumer-electronics manufacturer. We lose sight of that, because its products are delivered in such a way that they resonate as something more significant than cellular phones, computers and tablets. The brand’s marketing – even of its iterative updates: iPad Mini; iPad Air; and iPhone are prime examples – often is an event unto itself. But Apple is a distant cousin of former electronics heavyweights Philco, RCA and Magnavox as much as it is a competitor with Samsung, HTC and Blackberry. The key here is that Apple has positioned itself as a constant innovator, and – at least for now – manages to maintain that image. Where Apple traditionally has done it right is in its elimination of unnecessary steps to achieve actions that consumers wanted to accomplish. The user interface of the iPhone was intuitive. Execution of applications on their desktops occurred simply through the precursors of apps, with a double-click launch to windows that allowed almost instantaneous action. The tablet was merely the melding of a big iPhone without the phone (which is a secondary or tertiary aspect of the iPhone for many of its users) and a laptop computer without the keyboard that could be handheld and was easily portable. This was not a new creation, but a hybrid of previous thinking. And as new products evolve, be they configured as wristwatches or as pendants or glasses, see them for what they are: Logical next steps with practical user-focused application. Google, of course, provides the world of searchable data from a largely plain white page that only is tweaked occasionally to include a logo that is modified to celebrate holidays, achievements or anniversaries. Google results are not always as accurate as those provided by search engines such as Bing or Yahoo, but the simplicity of an empty box on a virtually unencumbered page resonates as a superior experience. Google wasn’t even first to this space, but – like Apple – created a user interface that was straightforward and unintimidating. And that is all it takes for an innovation to separate itself from the pack. Facebook was an iteration of Friendster and MySpace, which were long-range iterations of online chat rooms. Twitter? It’s a merging of text-messaging and shared social media. These ideas were not created in isolation, but as adaptations and improvements of existing technology.

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You may wish to create the next Facebook, Apple or Google – endeavoring to try to trump technology that is considered as the pinnacle of the current state of innovation. Or you may create an incredible innovation that enhances the experience of Facebook, an Apple product or optimizes results on Google. Or you may look at that shovel that is laying next to your new lightweight, collapsible hose and wonder why nobody ever tried making that shovelhead out of ceramic and the handle from some renewable wood source. Or perhaps you step back from the daily grind in your managerial world, map out a new pathway for execution that creates a higher level of productivity, improves morale and allows your happier, healthier workforce to become entrepreneurial scouts over their workload that repeats itself down the line. There are options all around us, within our path and within arm’s reach. But it is the entrepreneur in us that steps back, sees these opportunities clearly for what they can be, and challenges conventional thinking to find a new way to improve the bread – and perhaps make some of their own.

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As always, stay classy. Chris Krug is president of No Limit Agency*, the progressive media communications firm in Chicago. No Limit is a full-service agency whose practice focuses on strategy, brand management, creative campaigns and delivering unparalleled placement in the media. No Limit Agency works with more than 50 of the best-known brands in North America, and that’s not by coincidence. Contact Krug by calling 312-526-3996 or via email at [email protected].