Challenges of Scaling Innovation in Product Development

New product initiatives within large companies often fail to achieve their potential because they have too much rather than too little. They have too much: 1) Headcount You are now under pressure to come up with something for all these people to do. Especially in cultures where “engineers must always be coding” and a PM is seen as failing if engineers are even briefly “blocked on requirements.” 2) Democratic decision making Creative ideas get killed (or watered down) by groups — yet this is the default in most big companies, even those that claim to use RAPID or similar frameworks. 3) Optics requirements You must now manufacture metrics and milestones to show straight-line progress and demonstrate certainty — during what is, by its very nature, an uncertain journey. 4) Involvement of the “core” product group To appease the leaders of the company’s cash cow, you make compromises that weaken your product. These leaders have the most power within the company and some may even try to confuse the CEO or quietly sabotage your initiative. 5) Reliance on the company’s distribution Due to the mirage of distribution, you won’t be incentivized to deeply understand your customer like a real startup would. Your initial traction is misleading — you get a usage spike, but: (a) those users are scattered across segments, not your core segment (have you even identified that core segment?) (b) what’s given will be taken away — that homepage slot for your new product will disappear next quarter due to VP jealousy or shifting OKRs (with some hand-wavy “metrics neutral” excuse). So if you are leading a new initiative within a larger company and your CEO/CxO asks you what you need to succeed, do not default to the answer that everyone in this situation gives: “I need more resources”. Instead, consider asking for less — less reporting, less certainty, less consensus-driven decision making, less meddling, and less pressure to build out a “full team” & great operations early on. If your CEO is competent, they’ll respect it. (clearly, this entire post is only for the intrepid product leaders who want to make winning products, it is not for everyone 🙂)

Tanguy Crusson has spent 10+ years at Atlassian, where he's taken several products from zero to one, including HipChat, Statuspage, and most recently, Jira Product Discovery. In this episode, we dive deep into the struggles and lessons of innovating and building new products inside a large company. Tanguy shares candid stories about what's worked, what hasn't, and everything he's learned about successfully building 0 to 1. We cover: 🔸 Why large companies with so many advantages still fail at creating new products 🔸 How to avoid common pitfalls like competitive myopia and premature scaling 🔸 Lessons learned from acquisitions 🔸 Lessons from competing with Slack 🔸 Insights from the success of Jira Product Discovery 🔸 Tactics for protecting your “ugly babies” 🔸 The power of “lighthouse users” 🔸 The importance of having a “why now” 🔸 So much more Listen now 👇 - YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gr9f4D45 - Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gmiuz944 - Apple: https://lnkd.in/gWGAc5ZX Some key takeaways: 1. “Don’t eat your own bullshit.” When launching new products within companies that have already seen some success, it’s easy to assume that your existing playbooks will work again. But what got you here won’t take you there. You need to define, test, and validate your assumptions, because they may very well be wrong—especially when targeting new customer segments. 2. Startups benefit from starving. Starving creates hunger, which drives people to solve problems with resourcefulness and urgency. When exploring new products in a big company with excessive resources, you need to create scarcity to emulate this startup starvation. This generally means operating as a small, scrappy, siloed team. 3. The most likely outcome when launching a new product is failure—even at big companies that appear to have many advantages. It’s important to ground new product launches in this reality so that you can deter the company from over-investing, which ultimately serves to reduce hunger, slow things down, and decrease the chances of success. After all, why invest heavily in something that’s most likely to fail anyway? 4. Success for new products should be measured differently from existing ones, both in terms of metrics and time horizons. In general, new products should be judged by whether the team is answering the right questions at the right pace and whether the team is still excited about the new bet’s potential. It’s a common mistake to judge new products by metrics that a big company is used to, like MAUs or revenue. However, if a team is optimizing for MAUs or revenue before they’ve worked to understand the problem, they will be working on the wrong things. 5. Atlassian uses a four-phase approach to launching new products and deciding whether to invest in them further: Wonder, Explore, Make, Impact

Execs: "Our teams are experimenting, why aren't we finding new growth?" Me: "Well, you started out strong by organizing teams around ideas, giving them access to customers, providing them with tools and had them start running experiments. The teams are only relying on interviews and surveys and don't know how to find stronger evidence on their own." Execs: "So let's teach them more experiments." Me: "That will certainly help and the teams could use a customized playbook based on your industry. This isn't only a skill issue though, it is a system issue. Even your best trained teams will fail if they don't have the time and support to apply what they've learned. They need coaching help for their experimentation if you are to find new growth. Instead of squeezing this into a few hours a week, they more dedicated time. Think of this like a portfolio, not a series of one off teams or projects experimenting with a few customers." Execs: "OK, we'll make sure all of these systems are in place." Me: "That's a good step, and we'll need to go beyond giving this lip service, because you aren't simply setting up a process, you are building a culture of experimentation. This requires communicating the vision of why you are undertaking this challenge. You'll need sponsors who can make decisions on these ideas based on evidence and alignment to your narrative. You'll need metered funding to invest in the ideas that show promise and retire the ones that don't. You'll need to scout for opportunities to drive new growth. And with all of that, this initiative will stall without an incentive system that rewards teams for working this way." Execs: "This sounds like an overwhelming amount of work." Me: "This is a shift. We don't need to build all of this at once. We just have to start, based on where you are today, and build the support system that will allow innovation to stick."

Scaling kills more great ideas than failure ever could. Here’s how to prevent yours. Scaling should feel like winning. But most great ideas don’t just stumble as they grow, they collapse. I learned this the hard way: Scaling was supposed to be our big win. Instead, it became our undoing. Costs spiraled, systems broke, and the team burned out. Six months later, we shut everything down. Looking back, the mistakes were obvious. But only after it was too late. Scaling isn’t about doing more. It’s about designing for growth. Here are the 7 traps that kill ideas when they scale—and how to avoid them. 1. False Positives Early wins are seductive. They blind you to hidden risks and fuel overconfidence. ✅ Fix It: Test your idea in multiple scenarios and push for independent validation. 2. Biased Testing Testing the wrong audience is like reading the wrong map. It’s a straight path to failure. ✅ Fix It: Make sure your test group reflects your actual customer base. 3. Unscalable Elements Scaling isn’t about cloning your stars. It’s about creating a system that shines without them. ✅ Fix It: Build scalable systems that work without relying on individuals. 4. Negative Spillovers Scaling isn’t just about growing bigger. It’s about avoiding the cracks that widen as you expand. ✅ Fix It: Plan for unintended consequences and design systems that scale smoothly. 5. Cost Overload Scaling too fast is like pouring gasoline on a fire. It burns bright but won’t last. ✅ Fix It: Plan for economies of scale and focus on cost efficiency. 6. Human Limitations Success tied to irreplaceable people isn’t success. It’s a ticking time bomb. ✅ Fix It: Create training programs and processes that deliver consistent results. 7. Lack of Stress Testing Scaling is where weaknesses stop hiding. Stress-test early—or watch them break everything. ✅ Fix It: Stress-test your idea under diverse, real-world conditions to uncover hidden flaws. Fix these traps early, and your growth won’t just be bigger. It’ll be unstoppable. What’s one scaling trap you’ve seen most? ♻️ Share this to help someone scaling their big idea. Follow Amy for more business strategies like this.