Tim Kastelle praises Derek Sivers‘ approach to innovation.
He tells the story of the voice coach that he had when he was singing in a band. He’d have Sivers sing a song an octave higher, then an octave lower, then fast, slow, like Tom Waits, etc. After doing all of that there was always a choice about the best way to sing each song.
Sivers then says you can apply that to business ideas: how would you do it with only $1000?.. how would you do it without a website?.. how would you do it with 10 times the customers?
I sometimes try this kind of thing when doing performance coaching. Quite often very small “tilts” can be quite illuminating. I got someone struggling with a speech to try it with his hand in his pocket – suddenly he went from strained “announcement” mode to something friendly and conversational.