Edison on Innovation: 102 Lessons in Creativity for Business and Beyond

6.6. Lesson 53: Offer an Edge

Edison's early inventions exploited niche markets. They consisted of specialized telegraphic applications, a vote recorder for legislative bodies, and, in 1869, the inventor's first significant commercial success: a machine for reporting gold and stock quotations—what was later popularly called the stock ticker.

For gold speculators and stockbrokers, the only commodity more valuable than information was timely information. Indeed, the value of information in any volatile market is directly proportional to its freshness. Edison, who had already learned the lessons of fresh news when he worked as a news butcher on the Grand Trunk and then as a telegrapher along that same rail line, fully understood the relation between ...