I just saw this. Vivek forwarded it to me. Get article. Especially the part about that interesting company selling efficiency. Talk with you soon.

The Millionare Next Door is a book which described the author’s “hunt” for millionaires – people with net worth between $1 and $10 million (this was before the dot com boom so the numbers might be different now). They described the demographics of such people that they found. Most of them didn’t live in high priced neighborhoods or drive new expensive cars or dress in expensive clothes. They found most people who did that had high incomes but also high debt and low net worth.

They also found a high percentage of such millionaires owned their own businesses and most of those were what I call “boring” companies – contstruction firms, bowling alleys, cement plants.

So my comment was based on the idea that to run those businesses profitably you need good execution.

From a business perspective, execution without any innovation at all is risky in the long term because it lowers the barriers to competition. I suspect that most of the businesses that look boring and non-innovative have in reality made lots of small innovations in the way they do things – maybe not in the products they offer but in things they do when hiring, or managing, or selling or maintaining quality.

Can you expand on this statement?

Are you referencing how some businesses are highly successful by offering non-innovative products or services i.e. a lawn or cleaning service?

Also, do you think execution without innovation is a good or bad thing?