True Disruption Often Leads to Invention, but So Does Anticipation

Picture this: You start a small business by making a change to a preexisting product that completely reinvents that product. Some minor disruptions get in your way, so you and your team make some adjustments to your product.

While doing so, you start to consider other problems that may disrupt the newest iteration of this product you’re working on, and when it’s ready, start advertising to the local population your business is founded in.

Now, fast-forward several decades, and your once small business has grown to be a massive corporation making tens of thousands of that product that originated from merely reinventing an already existing product. Your brand is world-renowned, representing more than a product, but a lifestyle, and your company quite literally sets the standard for all those that followed.

But through all the proven success over the years, when is it finally time to reinvent the product, business process, or brand?

This example is actually based on a true story; can you guess the company? I’ll give you a hint: Its product is in the automotive industry, but unlike Ford Motor Company, builds vehicles with only two wheels.

A Two-Wheeled History Lesson

If you guessed Harley-Davidson, you are correct.

The Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Company was founded in 1903 by William S. Harley and brothers Walter and Arthur Davidson. The first motorcycle was born of these three individuals reinventing a pedal bicycle by engineering a 160cc engine on it. The aforementioned initial disruption they faced was the motor-bicycle being unable to climb some of the hills around Milwaukee.

The trio reinvented their engine right away, increasing its size to 405cc, much more power than was needed to climb the hills that the first iteration struggled with. This was an Anticipatory action. The three founders noted that even though the hills the motor-bicycle had to climb locally were small, there were likely more intense hills around the world that their machine would face.

Therefore, they pre-solved this problem of their motor-bicycle failing to climb said hills before the machine would ever make it to market.