Declining Barriers to Innovation

摘要

If you can imagine it, you can create it. --William Arthur Ward, aphorist Barriers to innovation are declining. It is easier today for an innovator to get into business than it has been at any time in history. There are many reasons for this, but most are driven by some aspect of the digital revolution. Today's digital tools help the entrepreneur on every step of his or her journey, from funding to marketing to product delivery. Crowdfunding, from sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, provides seed capital to turn ideas into products. Online communities let people with common interests combine their expertise and share needs. Open source hardware and software act as platforms for bootstrapping new innovations. Low-cost 3D printers and object printing services let entrepreneurs create custom physical products at low cost. Cloud computing platforms permit software companies to scale on a pay-per-use basis, without upfront capital. Online storefronts from Amazon or eBay create instant marketing and distribution channels. list goes on. Michael Porter, who defined the notion of barriers to entry, identified seven key barriers (Porter 1979, 1998). Four of those are being at least partially eroded by these forces: * benefits of economies of scale are eroded by cloud computing infrastructure and on-demand, smallscale manufacturing capabilities. * Access to capital is eased both by crowdfunding and by the reduced need for upfront infrastructure investments with the availability of cloud-based tools. * Access to distribution is improved in an age of online stores, search engine marketing, and insight on customer interest and willingness to pay from Kickstarter campaigns, which can help support a campaign for bricks-and-mortar shelf space. * Incumbency advantages (other than scale) are eroded when even small entrepreneurs can leverage communities, open source tools, and social media to spread the word and attract supporters. Network effects and switching costs still remain potent forces, as are the potentially innovation-inhibiting effects of some government policy, but many things are a lot easier for would-be innovators. In one sense, this is good news for entrepreneurs--it makes it easier to get started--but it is bad news in another. As Michael Porter has said, If there are no barriers to entry, if customers have all the power, and if rivalry is based on price, then the Net doesn't matter--you won't be very profitable (Hammonds 2001). This issue explores many of these trends, looking at how technological forces are reshaping the way innovators conceptualize, produce, and sell. One of the primary disruptive factors, particularly in manufacturing, is the advent of 3D printing. As that technology matures, more and more people have access to the tools to make their ideas real. This year's IRI Achievement Award winner, Chuck Hull, is a key figure in that revolution--he invented 3D printing and went on to found the company that made it a market force. Ironically, one of the technologies central to the current revolution in manufacturing almost didn't get made. Hull's story of his career, told in The Birth of 3D Printing, vividly describes the challenges of innovation and entrepreneurship. tale he tells of the invention and commercialization of 3D printing is fascinating. For Steve Hoover and Lawrence Lee of PARC, 3D printing is just one of the forces reshaping the manufacturing world. In Democratization and Disintermediation, they discuss the parallels between software's disruption of industry after industry and what they see as a coming disruption in the making of things. Manufacturing, they argue, is ripe for the same creative destruction that played out in computing, retail, publishing, and music, led by 3D printing, advanced design software, robotics, and innovations in funding and supply chain mechanisms. …