Hi there,
As part of my research process for my book Elonology, which is about Elon Musk’s success secrets, I created the largest collection of Elon Musk quotes on the Internet…
And of the hundreds of quotes I curated two innovation quotes stuck out to me above all the rest:
“What matters is the pace of innovation. It is a fundamental determinant to competitiveness.” ~Elon Musk
and
“The company with the higher rate of innovation will unequivocally win long term.” ~Elon Musk
The first time I heard Elon mention this concept he talked about it on a Tesla investor earnings call.
On the call Elon praised Amazon and explained the main reason Amazon has dominated Wal-Mart is due to their rapid rate of innovation.
For Amazon their innovation is a product of the constant experiments they run.
In Amazon’s first year they ran 546 experiments…
In 2012 they ran 1092 experiments…
1,976 experiments in 2013…
And Amazon now runs over 12,000 experiments each year to continuously improve customer experience.
I was not able to find out how many experiments Wal-Mart runs per year from a Google search but since the customer experience has hardly changed in the past decade I don’t think they innovate very much at all.
That’s why Amazon has been able to gain so much market share…
And why Elon Musk has been able to dominate the Automotive and Rocket industries simultaneously.
It all boils down to rate of experimentation and implementation of effective innovations.
The Tesla Model X Falcon Wing doors are a great example of awesome innovation…
So is re-usable rockets and self-driving car technology, two other innovations pioneered by Elon Musk.
The good news is anyone can apply the powerful business philosophy of implementing innovations.
To do this: Experiment with new strategies, tools, tactics, employees, companies, software solutions, etc, etc.
Track your metrics and double down on what works best.
That’s how you get ahead.
Rate of innovation is the fundamental determinant of success.
Garin Kilpatrick
P.S. Like this strategy? You’ll love my magnum opus Elonology.