The Innovator's Guide to Growth: Putting Disruptive Innovation to Work

CHAPTER 2

Identifying Nonconsumers

THE NOTION THAT someone who doesn’t consume can be a likely target for a booming growth business certainly seems counterintuitive. However, one of the powers of disruptive innovation is that it can greatly expand markets by flinging open the doors to those who historically faced some kind of “constraint” on their consumption.

Indeed, finding ways to connect with nonconsumers is one of the best methods for internal innovators to position disruption as an opportunity instead of a threat. Rather than talking in fire-and-brimstone language about how disruption will destroy a lucrative business line, you can talk in hope-and-glory language about how disruption can be the ticket to create that next lucrative ...