02. The Startup Innovation Trap | Why Experts Aren’t Your Answer

When I was running my agency, we operated across three countries, two continents, and worked with just about every major IT and telecom brand you can think of. At one point, we needed someone in traffic. Not the kind with cars, but the person who sits right at the heart of operations — the oil in the machine, the one who holds the tension between planning, production, deadlines, and budgets. You can have the best creative idea in the world, but if it’s late or over budget, you’ve failed.

Then I met this guy — a friend of a friend, maybe 25. Bright eyes. Zero baggage. He had something about him. Not knowledge. Not experience. But presence. Trust. A clear way of seeing. Tiny problem: he knew absolutely nothing. He didn’t know what traffic was. Couldn’t tell a flyer from a billboard. No clue how to plan. No background in advertising. No idea how fragile that role actually was.

So I hired him.

I put him right in the middle of the storm. And something wild happened: the company took off. Faster. Leaner. Sharper. Not because he knew how it was done — but because he didn’t. He wasn’t burdened by “That’s how we do things here.” He didn’t follow the system — he looked at it. And in doing so, he made it better. He found efficiencies we didn’t know were possible. He bought smarter. He communicated clearer. He made it his.

And that’s what reminded me of something so many of us forget: sometimes the best people for the job aren’t the ones with experience. They’re the ones with the ability to see what the experienced no longer notice.

Let me tell you something most people in leadership won’t admit: real innovation doesn’t come from experts. It comes from the edges. From outsiders. From misfits. From people who didn’t get the memo about how things “should” be done. Yet we keep asking the same people, with the same backgrounds and the same titles, to come up with the next breakthrough. And then we wonder why nothing new happens.

I’ve seen it too often — boardrooms full of smart, experienced people repeating the same ideas in slightly fancier PowerPoint decks. And when someone finally dares to say something different? It’s dismissed. Too risky. Too vague. Too unproven. Because we’ve been taught that knowledge equals safety and status equals reliability.

But innovation? It laughs in the face of both.

Let me take you back to the early 1900s. The U.S. military hires Dr. Samuel Langley — a highly respected scientist — to build the first motorized flying machine. Big title. Big budget. Big failure. Meanwhile, two brothers in North Carolina — with no degrees, no funding, and nothing but a bicycle shop — are literally building the future in their backyard. They fly. They succeed. And they get ignored. Because they’re not “credible.” Not respected enough. Not official enough. Not expensive enough.

And it would take years before the U.S. military finally knocked on their door — not because they suddenly believed in them, but because the French military did. And that? They simply couldn’t stomach. Only then did the Wright brothers become worthy. Not because of what they did, but because someone else saw it first.

And that right there is the trap: we mistake credibility for capability. We confuse reputation with vision. But history tells a different story.

The iPad? Wasn’t Steve Jobs’ genius moment. It was a second life for the Newton MessagePad — a failed idea from the ’90s by a CEO most people forgot. Post-it Notes? Born from a failed glue. Created by a guy trying to fix his hymnbook. The pacemaker? Came from a mistake — a resistor put in the wrong way by someone who wasn’t even building a pacemaker.

Innovation doesn’t announce itself. It shows up covered in dust. It’s awkward. Messy. Often inconvenient. And it rarely wears a tie.

So why do we still ask “the most qualified” for “the most original” thinking? That’s like asking the head of traffic control how to invent the next Ferrari. It doesn’t work. Because the people who invent the next thing? They’re not inside the system. They’re outside of it. They’re the ones who don’t care about how it’s always been done — they care about how it could be done.

So if you’re a leader, here’s the question: where are you looking for your next idea? In the comfortable? The predictable? The familiar? Or are you willing to listen to the junior? The intern? The client who asks a “stupid” question? The outsider who doesn’t know the rules — and therefore isn’t trapped by them?

Because innovation doesn’t care about your résumé. It cares about your curiosity. And if you want it, you have to let go of being right. Of being safe. Of being admired. You have to create space for wrong turns, for failed prototypes, for the person who sees the world just a little differently than you do.

Because the future? It rarely comes from the front row. It comes from the fringe.

So stop clinging to the beaten path. Stop idolizing the expert who already knows. Start listening to the one who doesn’t — but sees what no one else is looking for. That’s where it begins.

Maybe the real question isn’t, “Where’s the next great idea?” Maybe the question is, “Who are we ignoring?” Because if even the Wright brothers had to wait for the French before their own country took them seriously… what does that say about how we treat outsiders today?

The future often doesn’t arrive with fanfare. It arrives quietly. From the side. From the strange. From the underestimated. And if we’re not paying attention — we’ll miss it. Or worse… we’ll watch someone else embrace it first, and then scramble to catch up.

So build your team with wild cards. Listen to the one who doesn’t talk like you. Give the floor to the one without the résumé. Make space for the unexpected. Because what’s predictable might feel safe — but it rarely changes the world.