Whenever we open the floor for questions about the Innovator Founder Visa, there is one subject that comes up again and again: innovation.
What does it actually mean? Does an innovative business have to involve technology? Does it need to be something that has never existed before? And perhaps the biggest question of all: if you aren't building the next piece of groundbreaking AI, can your business really be innovative?
These are fair questions, particularly because “innovation” is one of those words that we all use confidently until someone asks us to explain exactly what we mean by it.
We have talked about this quite a lot on Innovator Pulse. In fact, we have dedicated webinars and articles to the subject because it is one of the most misunderstood parts of the Innovator Founder journey. As we have discussed previously, our own Director Richard has a deliberately simple way of thinking about it: something different, someone who wants it, and someone who can sell it. Innovation isn't simply creativity or having an interesting idea. There needs to be a genuine problem being solved, a market for the solution and a credible route to building something that can grow.
But sometimes the easiest way to understand a concept is to stop talking about it and look at some real examples.
And one slightly unexpected place to start is with a pair of safety glasses.
What can a pair of safety glasses teach us about innovation?
Back in 2023, Woman's World published a piece looking at ten products it described as “paving the way for innovation” in their respective industries. It is an interesting list because, at first glance, not everything on it screams “innovation”.
There is a fizzy drink. There are socks. There are rugs. There is a phone service, a speaker and a breast pump. There are even jewellery payment options.
And then there are Stoggles prescription safety glasses, which might just be one of the best examples of the whole list.
Safety glasses are hardly a new invention. Neither are prescription glasses. Put the two together, however, and you have a very practical problem. Someone who needs prescription lenses but also needs proper eye protection can find themselves trying to make two different requirements work together.
Stoggles approached that problem by creating safety glasses designed to accommodate prescription lenses while also offering features such as anti-fog coating, shatter resistance and UV protection. Woman's World also highlighted the adjustable frame and the fact that the glasses were designed to look more like something people would actually want to wear, rather than simply something they were required to put on at work.
Nobody invented glasses here.
Nobody even invented safety glasses.
The innovation lies in looking at an existing product, identifying a gap in the experience and asking whether it could be done better. That is a much more useful way to think about innovation.
However, innovation in general terms and innovation in the context of the Innovator Founder Visa can differ slightly, and that's where we sometimes encounter problems. Whilst this is an excellent example of innovation in general, it may not have been suitable for an Innovator Founder Visa application because you could argue that it is easily replicable. Someone has simply combined two ideas. So what comes into play here, is how replicable an idea is and whether there is anything significantly challenging that they had to do to make it happen.
Innovation might just be a washable rug
The same thinking appears in another example from the article: Tumble's washable rugs.
Rugs have been around for centuries, and there is nothing particularly futuristic about putting one on the floor. The problem is that cleaning them can be surprisingly difficult. They can be heavy, awkward and expensive to have professionally cleaned, while anyone with a dog, children or a particularly enthusiastic cup of coffee knows that rugs have a tendency to attract mess.
Tumble's approach was to rethink the product around that problem, creating rugs designed to be washed in a machine. Again, the innovation isn't “we have invented the rug”. It is much more interesting than that. It is taking something familiar and questioning an assumption that most people have simply accepted: perhaps a rug doesn't have to be difficult to clean.
That question is often where innovation begins and again, how easily it can be replicated. Can anyone make a rug smaller or lighter, or have you done something specific that is hard to replicate?
We see the same thing in businesses all the time. A founder notices a process that is unnecessarily complicated, an experience that frustrates customers or a group of people who aren't being properly served, and instead of accepting that this is simply how the industry works, they start looking for another way.
Sometimes the opportunity is sitting in the most ordinary places.
You don't have to invent something completely new
This is where the Woman's World list becomes particularly useful for anyone thinking about innovation in their own business.
Take Comrad's compression socks. Compression socks aren't new. The basic principle behind them has been around for a long time. But the company has focused on improving the experience around the product, combining compression and support with comfort, breathability and a more modern design. The article specifically highlighted the fact that they were made to be something people might actually want to wear, rather than something they reluctantly put on because they had to.
Did they utilise a material that wasn't otherwise used? What was the challenging components that is difficult to replicate?
Or take Olipop, which was featured as a healthier alternative to traditional fizzy drinks. The idea of putting something fizzy in a can and selling it in a supermarket is hardly groundbreaking. The interesting part is the attempt to rethink what that product can be, using different ingredients and positioning it for consumers looking for an alternative to conventional soft drinks.
This one is interesting because of the range of competitors in the area. What have they done that's different? In a world of healthier drinks, what are they come up with that's different and difficult to replicate.
Neither example depends on inventing a completely new category. Instead, both start with something that already exists and ask a different question about it. Could this be healthier? Could this be more comfortable? Could this be more attractive? Could this be more convenient? Could this work better for a particular group of people? That could be considered innovation too - but only in the context of the Innovator Founder Visa if it is not easily replicated.
What about the portable breast pump?
The BabyBuddha example takes the idea a step further because it demonstrates how innovation can come from understanding someone's everyday life.
The Woman's World article highlighted the brand's portable breast pumps, alongside its wider range of baby products. The point was not simply that the pump performed the same function as every other breast pump. Portability was central to the proposition, recognising that parents often need products that fit around busy lives rather than requiring their lives to fit around the product.
Making something smaller isn't as easy as it sometimes sounds. It requires redesign, redevelopment and integration of technology, and then ensuring that it is still fit for purpose. It is a small distinction, but an important one - Innovation often starts with understanding the person who has the problem. What are they currently doing? What is difficult about it? What would make their lives easier? What are they having to compromise on? The answers to those questions can be more valuable than simply asking, “What new product can I create?”
And innovation isn't just about products
Perhaps the most important point to take from all of this is that innovation doesn't have to be a physical product at all. The original Woman's World list included Red Pocket's approach to affordable mobile phone service and Daniel's Jewelers' credit programme. In both cases, the innovation being highlighted was less about a shiny new object and more about the way an existing service was being delivered.
That matters because one of the biggest misconceptions we encounter is that innovation has to mean a new piece of technology, but it doesn't.
A business can innovate through its service model, its delivery model, its use of specialist knowledge, its approach to an existing market or by opening up access to something that was previously difficult for people to access. Our previous discussions on Pulse have made exactly this point: innovation can mean a better solution to an existing problem, a unique delivery model or adapting something that already works elsewhere and making it work in a new market.
That is why an innovative business might be a software company, a healthcare platform, a food brand, a professional service, a manufacturing business or something we haven't thought of yet. The sector doesn't make the business innovative - the thinking does.
So, where does innovation actually start?
Looking through the Woman's World examples, there is a pattern that is worth paying attention to.
The starting point isn't usually “I want to build an innovative company", it is a frustration. Something doesn't work properly. Something takes too long. Something is too expensive. Something is uncomfortable. Something is inaccessible. Something has been designed around the way an industry has always operated rather than the way customers actually want it to operate.
That is where the Stoggles founder sees the problem with prescription safety glasses. It is where Tumble sees the problem with cleaning rugs. It is where Comrad sees an opportunity to rethink compression socks and where BabyBuddha looks at how a product fits into the reality of modern parenting.
And we see exactly the same pattern in the founders we feature here on Innovator Pulse: Dina saw a problem with how people were getting the nutrients they needed and built a solution. Arina faced rejection after rejection before turning the idea behind RawQ into a product that eventually reached Whole Foods and Planet Organic. Camila looked at traditional language teaching and recognised that the way people were being taught didn't necessarily reflect the way people actually learn, leading to BeLingual.
Different industries. Different founders. Very different businesses.
But the same underlying instinct: there has to be a better way of doing this.
Harriet Fuller
Innovation isn't about making something sound impressive
This is particularly important for anyone considering the Innovator Founder Visa. It can be tempting to make an idea sound as futuristic as possible. Add some technology, throw in a little AI, describe it as “revolutionary” and hope it starts sounding innovative.
But that isn't the point. As we explored in our previous What IS Innovation? article, innovation isn't about making an idea sound impressive. It needs to be genuinely different, commercially viable and capable of scaling. Simply being cheaper, faster or a copy of something that already exists isn't enough.
Innovator International
The better question is much more straightforward: what is different about what you are doing, what problem does it solve, who actually wants it and why can this become a successful business?
Those questions might not sound as exciting as “Are you disrupting the future?” but they are considerably more useful. And they are the questions that can turn an interesting idea into an actual business.
We have based this article on Woman's World's These 10 Products are Paving the Way for Innovation in their Industries, you can find the original piece here:
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