Source: vernieman

It seems like the Prius is the car to own if you want to show off your environmental conscience. As a clincher, throw in a trunk full of pricey organic foods and make sure people see you carry them in eco-friendly $960 designer reusable grocery bags (I have reusable grocery bags too, but mine are $958 cheaper).

OK, putting the eco-hype aside, the Prius is a pretty amazing tale of success. The story of Prius is an excellent case study for innovation. The term “innovation” carries a lot of loaded meaning, so I need to be explicit. I define “innovation” as a creative solution that is commercially successful. Aspiring entrepreneurs can learn something here.

Innovation Always Start with a Challenge
Many great innovations begin first with a daunting challenge, and the Prius is no different:

In 1994, Akihiro Wada, then executive vice president of Toyota, set a challenge before the project’s engineers: to double the fuel efficiency compared with a conventional vehicle.

On top of that, Toyota’s president at the time, Hiroshi Okuda, told the group to complete its work years ahead of schedule, in order to introduce the vehicle in 1997, the year the Kyoto Protocol was adopted at the U.N. conference on climate change.

- Prius at 10 | HybridCars.com

Takeshi Uchiyamada had his hands full as the lead engineer of the Prius group. He was assigned this impossible task and responded by proposing an advanced gas engine that would increase the fuel efficiency by 50%. Although this was a very impressive goal, it was not good enough. Uchiyamada also tried to negotiate the deadline. His bosses did not budge. In fact, Uchiyamada was given the option of completing the assignment or to resign.

Innovation Is Part Evolution, Part Revolution
The only hope of ever achieving the fuel efficiency was to produce a commercially viable hybrid car, a feat that no other company was able to achieve. The advanced technology to build hybrid cars existed to some extent, but no one was able to build a hybrid without being too cost prohibitive. Uchiyamada’s team started with a 1974 TRW patent of a hybrid engine, but they needed to overcome a number of difficult engineering problems in order to make the engine practical and viable for production.

Source: pittaya

A lot of revolutionary products are the results of an evolution of a concept that previously did not succeed. For example, the Diamond Rio was one of the first digital music players in the market, making it a creative solution. However, it was not a commercial success due to the small storage capacity and battery life, and Diamond Multimedia eventually filed for bankruptcy. A few years after the Rio, Apple solved these problems when they introduced the iPod, which then resulted in its commercial success. Although the Rio had great technology, it was not a great product. If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, you need to know the difference.

Dreams Require Blood, Sweat, and Tears to Come to Life
Uchiyamada wanted to design a car ever since he was a teenager, and he was in his 50’s when he finally got the chance. He would not let failure happen without a fight. Uchiyamada and his team worked 16-hour days and tested hundred of engines in order to get it right. Fistfights literally broke out over how to solve some of the engineering problems. According to one of Toyota’s employees, “We put sweat and blood into its design and production to get enviable quality.”

The 3 C’s of Innovation
Toyota boils down the ingredients of innovation into the 3 C’s: creativity, challenge, and courage. Creativity is a necessary part of innovation, but not sufficient. Creativity that is revolutionary can be impressive, but sometimes a combination of revolutionary as well as evolutionary ideas are needed to make something succeed in the real world. Challenge is the opportunity to be heroes - the chance to achieve greatness. Courage is needed to accept the impossible challenge and be willing to sacrifice blood, sweat, and tears to turn a dream into reality.