You Thought of it First. Here’s How to Launch It First (A Simple Formula to Innovate Faster and Smarter).

Last fall, a client came to us with a half-built AI product, a missed market opportunity, and a creeping suspicion they were already too late. “We had the idea before everyone,” they said. “But now it feels like we’re playing catch up.”

They weren’t the only ones.

In today’s warp-speed market, innovation rewards speed—and punishes indecision. The difference between a breakthrough product and another half-baked pitch deck often comes down to one thing: how fast you can shape, pressure-test, and package the idea into something the market actually wants.

That’s why we use a fast-track innovation formula that helps clients distill six months of hand-wringing into one focused, strategy-packed day (it’s called the idea Forge). Whether you’re launching something new or reinventing what already exists, this process will help you move from idea to action with clarity and confidence.

Here’s how you can apply it to your next big idea:

Step 1: Blue Sky or Brand Uplevel?

Is this a net-new idea—or a strategic evolution of something you and your team have already doing? Clarifying this early determines how quickly you can move. Take Adobe: it didn’t create the concept of creative tools—but shifting from boxed software to a subscription model (Creative Cloud) was a game-changing repackage of an existing offer.

Step 2: What’s Actually Happening in Your Market?

New pain points mean new opportunities. Peloton leaned into this during the early days of the pandemic—not by building new equipment, but by doubling down on creating remote, community-driven workouts that addressed a very immediate problem: how to help active people stay active and connected from home.

Step 3: What Are Your Competitors Doing (and Missing)?

Next up, look at where others are falling short. Scour reviews, chat rooms, reddit feeds, LinkedIn comments. Calendly grew fast not because it introduced a revolutionary idea, but because it did just one thing better—eliminating the back-and-forth of scheduling. It solved a simple pain point that its competitors hadn’t yet nailed.

Step 4: Where’s the White Space?

Look for gaps others are ignoring. When YETI launched high-end coolers, they weren’t reinventing the category—they were elevating it. They saw a market that was purely functional and created a premium, lifestyle-driven product that outdoors enthusiasts didn’t even know they wanted… until they did.

Step 5: Solve a Big Problem

Ask yourself: what pain does this fix? If you can’t answer that clearly, the market won’t either. Solving “nice to have” is fine—but solving “must-have” is faster, more profitable, and far easier to scale. Think of how Figma challenged traditional design tools by fixing a huge collaboration bottleneck. Designers could now work together in real time—no clunky file sharing needed. For the Yeti example above, if you’re thinking that having a great looking cooler doesn’t solve a problem – actually it does. Traditional coolers were ugly and used generations-old design. What Yeti did was bring the problem top of mind to its customers, so that the next time they went out to the beach, or on a picnic – they’d be aware of the clunky ugly blue box they’d have to lug along with them. In other words, Yeti was especially brilliant because it helped people solve a problem that they didn’t even know they had!

Step 6: Build the Ladder

Is there a way to offer this in tiers? Consider how Duolingo offers a free, wildly accessible language-learning app—then layers in paid tiers for serious learners. Same core value, different levels of commitment. Are you launching something that will be a one size fits all, or could it also be layered. This is also when you and your team get the pencils out and start crafting irresistible offer ideas for your new product or service. Be creative with it, sometimes the whackier the irresistible offer the more effective it can be. For example to promote their new breakfast biscuits, BelVita encouraged customers to share their morning achievements on Twitter using the hashtag #MorningWin. Selected tweets were reenacted by actors, transformed into 3D-printed trophies, and mailed to the participants. This campaign generated 80 million social impressions and doubled sales, showcasing an innovative blend of social media engagement and personalized rewards.

Step 7: Simplify Ruthlessly

By now you’ve made exceptional progress. You’ve ideated 360 degrees around your new idea and have the bones of a really great product or service.
Now cut it down. Strip away the features no one will pay for and that will slow you to market. Launch with the 20% that delivers 80% of the value. Remember when Instagram launched? It was just photo sharing with filters. Stories, Reels, and DMs came later.

Step 8: Soft Launch It

Pick a handful of real users and put it in front of them. Not in theory. In practice. You’ll find out quickly whether your assumptions hold up—and whether the idea is sticky or still needs work.

Step 9: Refine, Adjust, Go

Use feedback to fine-tune. Don’t get stuck in endless iterations—tighten, ship, and learn as you grow. Look at how OpenAI has evolved ChatGPT: frequent releases, constant learning, and no fear of putting a V1 out in the world.

Final Thoughts

Your best ideas need swift execution to see if they’ll be your next winner. If you’ve got a strong idea—or even a vague one—that’s been circling the drain of debate, now’s the time to sharpen it, shape it, and get it out into the world.

Use this process to bring structure to the chaos and turn your next idea into something real—faster than your competitors can book their next brainstorming session!