Building Moonshots

WAY 35Double Down on Breakthroughs: Launching on the back of incipient breakthroughs lets you accelerate faster.

About the Way

Much of history is strewn with companies who got first to market, piggybacking a new solution on an emerging breakthrough in science or technology. The opportunity to deliver a world‐changing solution on top of an unproven yet promising breakthrough is too hard to ignore. As a new breakthrough emerges from white papers and research labs, before any industry has solidified into shape, teams of all shapes and sizes double down on the promise of a big reward.

Corporations weigh trade‐offs all the time when making decisions on how customers will change, markets will develop, and how they can build an unfair advantage at every milestone. The further out the horizon, the bigger the risk and possible opportunity. Betting on potential breakthroughs offers some of the highest risk and reward, adjusted for a team's experience. Teams who bring more experience across various activities related to the breakthrough area—such as analyzing, testing, partnering for, integrating, and delivering—typically have more perspective and confidence to judge how to integrate a breakthrough into their plans.

The venture capital industry is built on investing in potential breakthroughs, with a history of successes and failures that can offer insight to other industries. For example, famed venture firm Kleiner Perkins were early investors in the electric vehicle revolution. As Kleiner ...