We don’t have a Silicon Valley equivalent in the UK. We have no major internet success stories. Sometimes I wonder if from the outside, it seems like we’re stuck in the Victorian era - a golden time of tinkering inventors.
Sure, Tom Pellereau might well sell a good number of units of his revolutionary new product (a curved nail file). But that success won’t be down to the quality of the product, or its ingenious design.
While Jonny Ive is forging never-before-seen devices out of never-before-used materials that connect to global networks, the best minds of Britain are lining up on The Apprentice and Dragon’s Den to present more marvellous trinkets that would fit best in the catalogue of Jonny Mills.
The world is in the middle of massive, fundamental, technological change, bringing with it vast opportunity.
How much of the world is still wide open for digital innovation? What about health care? Politics? Let alone how much of the world is yet to even join the net. In a post-PC era, where you’re no longer chained to a desk, what new things are possible?
With scope like that, however much we might love nailcare innovation at Tom’s level, isn’t it our duty to press ahead with what’s next, rather than to subtlely refine something that is just fine already (for a quick buck)?
My plea to you is this - find out what can be achieved. Build a better world, one tiny bit at a time. Look forward and think big. And please don’t put your own face on all your products.
