FAST COMPANY: What is a risk worth taking?
WHITNEY JOHNSON: When a startup says "there's a huge market and I've got the projections to prove it," it's likely that a competitor has scoped out the market and put a stake in the ground. But when they say to me "I can solve a problem that needs to be solved but I don't know how big the market it" I actually perk up, because market risk is worth taking. In either interest, startups are more likely than not to fail, but according to disruptive innovation theory, when you take on market versus competitive success, the odds of success are six times higher and the revenue opportunity twenty times greater.
What is a risk worth taking?
Whitney Johnson is a co-founder of Clay Christensen’s investment firm Rose Park Advisors, and the author of Dare, Dream, Do: Remarkable Things Happen When You Dare to Dream. She is a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review, a Senior Advisor to the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards, and a frequent speaker on disruptive innovation, investing and women's leadership. She was recognized by Inc Magazine as 12 People to Follow on Twitter in 2012, and one of Business Insider’s 54 Smart Thinkers Everyone Should Follow on Twitter. For more, follow her blog, or look for her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.
