Disruption before there's even a market

And what's crazy is that, unlike your typical disruptive innovation that Clay Christensen highlights, Google Cardboard is a disruptive innovation in a market that doesn't even fully exist yet.  Most of the big players haven't yet released their products, and Google has already undercut them with a product that will suffice for most, and retails at a price so affordable you can't really rationalise not giving it a go. 

In many ways, this is the nature of the tech industry now.  Innovation is happening so rapidly that we as consumers are spoilt for choice before the products even hit the market.  The same thing is happening in the home battery market - Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, and Powervault are all competing with each other before a single home battery has actually been installed.  However, Google Cardboard is a rare example of disruptive innovation occurring before the market has truly developed. 

What can we learn from this? 

Google's initiatives here highlight an important lesson: never lose sight of the market, even if that market doesn't yet fully exist.  Understanding consumers, their needs and desires, and how your offerings meet them is vital. 

How to approach disruptive innovation

If your product is yet to go to market, or you're looking at entering a a market, or even if that market doesn't exist yet (as in the case of VR), ask yourself these simple questions:

How are the majority of consumers being over-served?  What don't they care about?  What don't they use? 

Can that functionality be removed and result in a lower cost base for ourselves?  Can this lower cost then be handed over to the consumer in full, or at least in part, in the form of a lower price? 

Will this lower price attract non-customers, and lead to market growth? 

Applying this to Google

Google's Chromebook attracts those who are looking for a simple, hassle-free portable computer with no frills.  It's low price-point makes it worthwhile as a secondary device for on-the-go work or fun, or as an ideal purchase for school kids and students, elderly folk, and basically anyone not looking at doing media editing, gaming, programming or a handful of other resource intensive tasks. 

Google Cardboard strips away expensive materials, the necessity to purchase a screen (which most of already own in the form of a smartphone), and high-tech features, giving a low price headset that makes the upcoming VR market fun and cheap to enter for even the least interested among us. 

The disruptive innovation pay-off

There are always going to be some people who do use every feature.  When I talk about the 'majority', I'm talking about 95% of the consumers out there.  You have to warrant lowering the price and serving the more price sensitive mass market consumers out there in the trade-off that you'll attract a heap of new interest from those who wouldn't otherwise buy your product.  There will always be a necessity for biggest, flashiest, and most functional products - they will inevitably serve some people.  However, reaching the mass market is often a case of stripping down, rather than offering more.  This, at its core, is disruptive innovation.