Avoiding early adopter anguish

Robert Gerrish If you regularly worry that you’re missing the boat on some new innovation, or get rattled by the continual brilliance of others, rest assured, you’re not alone.

As someone involved in an online business, where technologies evolve quicker than I can change my socks, I confess that barely a day goes by where I don’t feel a tinge of intimidation from those at the cutting edge.

‘Early adopters’ dive in and lap up innovations rapidly and quite rightly enjoy this position. Indeed, many build great profiles and businesses that reflect their front of the pack status.

But do the rest of us need to feel left behind? Most definitely not.

In the 20 years I have been flying solo I have worried heaps about missing buses. In hindsight, I have missed none. Sure a few may have driven by, but they weren’t heading in the direction I wanted to go.

At FSHQ we pondered for ages about getting our forum up and running. I realise now that our timing was impeccable. In less than 6 months, YOU have made our forum the liveliest of its kind in Australia. If we’d rushed in, we’d have failed.

When we ran our live event last year, some were pushing us to better embrace blogs, wikis, podcasts and vodcasts. We didn’t and the sell out event was a cracker. This year our strategy will remain free of such distractions. We will focus our entire effort on creating a valuable, enjoyable day of learning and networking.

So next time you get unsettled by someone banging on about the urgency of getting onto Twitter, or harassing you to develop your Facebook profile, just remember these are the people who paid over $900 for a digital camera that does less than the one you bought last week for $150.

Relax. Business success is a delightfully long walk, with masses of beautiful scenery and many interesting people. It’s not a sprint down a crowded street. Not in my book anyway.

I’ll bet some of you have something to say. Post a comment below.

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Until next week.

Love your work,

Robert Gerrish is Flying Solo’s managing director and founder and works as a business coach, professional speaker, business commentator and consultant. He’s the co-author of Flying Solo – How to go it alone in business.

30 Jun 09

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29 comments | Add your own 1 2 3 4 5 | Next» View all»

Perfect post Robert - I've found the best business strategy is to let the other guys occupy the "bleeding edge".
Our business focuses on products that are well known & everyone uses.
We win over our competition by having superior customer service, great quality & better business systems.
It's working nicely for us - I'm in England developing our European operation right now. Rod Tanks from England (for the time being)
Absolutely. Adopting for the sake of adopting can also be an expensive exercise if you're not using the full functionality of the technology - almost always the case! Amanda Jephtha from Coogee, New South Wales
How true. If I spent my time chasing after all the new 'gadgets' I'd never get any work done - doesn't mean I don't feel intimidated from time to time for not having or knowing about them - but I find that when I really need to have one of them then I take the time to either learn about it so I can use it and offer it to my clients as a service, or I contract someone to make it work. Works for me! Caroline Jones from Sydney, Australia
I agree with Rod and you, Robert, to some extent. Having headed up two, at the time, highly succesfull "leading edge" businesses that made their reputations on being so, being ahead of the pack and staying there, can be very stressful - but as exciting as a moonshot ! It all depends on what turns you on at the time, I guess. The big advantage - providing you can leverage it (hate that word), of breaking new ground, is that you can use it to catapult your business into the number one position - fast. Staying there is the problem. I used to often think that perhaps being #2 or #3 would be better, that learning from the leader's mistakes and replicating their successes, would be more comfortable and secure. Now, I think that the important thing is to slice your market, choose your particular segment, define it clearly, and make sure you lead in that by adopting and developing only the innovations and new ideas that will produce improvements that your customers will care about. Being an "also ran" in any market is always uncomfortable, even if you don't care that much. Kit Peters from Riverview
Hi Robert, your last paragraph is a timely reminder, particularly in today's world, of what it's all about. The only thing that could have made your article even better would have been reading it in a 140 character summary on Twitter (LOL) Gregg Utting from Whyalla, South Australia
Great post Robert, it's a refreshing and valid viewpoint. I'm a website designer and developer. It's takes me an hour to catch up with recent developments every morning before I can start work.
Including this post I found via Twitter ;).
My morning surf with whales and dolphins is probably far more important :) Mark Law from Ballina, NSW, Australia

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