The Origins of The 100-Year Product (Part 1)

In 1995, Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen and his collaborators thought up the theory of disruptive innovation, theorizing how smaller companies with fewer resources can challenge established incumbents and win.

24 years later, in 2019, however, he famously said that "over 30,000 products are introduced every year and 95% fail". While these numbers vary year on year, there is enough evidence to substantiate the simple (however unfortunate) truth that many products are introduced every year, and a majority of them fail.

Part of this could be attributed to the immense change we're faced with (and the need to "iterate or die"), finite or restrictive business models, and the proliferation of technology, business, and innovation (resulting in the law of averages).

I also believe we've grown short-sighted with our vision and ambitions for these products. This has led to a wave of myopic experiences that are neither here to stay nor a stepping stone or foundation for future innovation.

Building a product that transcends time and trends (what I've coined The 100-Year Product) is the north star for most companies and leaders, chronicled more explicitly by Slack's Stewart Butterfield in his 2013 memo ("We Don't Sell Saddles Here"), and Jeff Bezos ("1997 Letter to Shareholders"), but felt implicitly by many. Yet, our thinking around 100-Year Products is limited and strangely mechanical, starkly contrasting human existence's depth, breadth, and richness. 

While at Carnegie Mellon, I spent most of my time thinking critically about the products that surround us; those that were a part of our past but continue to occupy space in our minds and hearts, those that support ordinary and extraordinary moments in our everyday lives and those that will inherently define and shape our future.

So, I launched a survey and domain study to expand my thinking on 100-Year Products. I connected with some academics and pioneers in product, design, and industry (fully taking advantage of being a student on a prolific campus like CMU). I learned a lot.

The articles that follow this one will present my study's findings, insights, and opinions on what it means for product teams. They're highly relevant to teams working on products of all kinds. Whether the product is a biscuit or a digital collaboration tool, there is so much we can learn from products in these seemingly "alternate worlds". Spoiler alert: The world's most loved, used, and memorable products, no matter how different, are surprisingly made up of the same elements and patterns.

If you are a practitioner on a product (or related) team looking for an escape from daily responsibilities to reignite a more ambitious product vision rooted in long-term meaning and to build a product in a user's future that will go on to define their past, shape their day-to-day and whom they become, stay tuned for the series!

What has Parle-G got to do with all of this? More on that in my next post.