So the question really becomes how do we grow these innovations next to the core business. And the first point I want you to realize is that it's actually more difficult than you think. It's already difficult to grow any innovation in any company. And it's difficult to introduce any radical change in a company for long list of reasons. But I want to point out three characteristics of these innovations that make it particularly difficult for companies to discover them and to grow them. The first difficulty is what Clay Christensen has wrote about in his book in 1997, the innovators dilemma, and that is when these innovations arrive, initially, your customers or the customers of the established business, they don't find those innovations attractive.
They simply don't want it. And it's only after 510 or 20 years, that they find them interesting and good enough. And to appreciate what I mean by it is considered as illustration There's you the big circle with all your customers and your established business. And there is this new thing, this new thing being the innovation. And there are two things to highlight. The first thing when this new thing or this new innovation arrives, is relatively small compared to you and your market, and therefore, it's easy to underestimate.
But that is not the real problem. The real problem is is when the new thing arrives, it appeals to a different customer, it appeals to a different customer than your core customer. And therefore, we have the challenge of convincing the organization to develop and grow this, because most of the managers will say, well, we talked to the customers, but none of them seems interested. So why as a company should we invest in this? But then what happens over time, the innovator who came up with a new thing, improve suit, and attracts more customers. And then a few more years go by and the universe later improves again and attracts more customers.
And then they improved a bit more. And then of course, you know, in the process 510 years later, suddenly, some of your customers, your core customers start to say, Hey, this is interesting, it suddenly becomes good enough for them, and they start switching. And when they start switching, you realize this and you say to yourself, I better keep an eye on this. And then of course, over time, the integrator improves a little bit more. And at the time, you say, Oh, my God, what is happening here, right, they are cannibalizing my core business, I really need to do something, I might want to get into this business as well. But of course, this is 20 years into the process.
And when you were there, in the beginning, you were saying, Well, my customers don't want it. And the point is here that your core customers will lead you astray. And that is exactly the first level of difficulty. You may like it but most of your managers in your organization will not like it. Basically because the customers at a very, very early age. They are showing no interest in it.
Telling you, I have no interest in this. And of course, if you follow this logic, there's another implication and that is your How do you know which innovation to pay attention to? And which one to ignore? Some innovations will grow and others will not. Some will cannot advise you and some will not. And how do you really know which one to focus on?
What you see is that this creates uncertainty in the organization. And therefore it's unusual that established players start a new disruptive innovation. There are examples of course, such as Nestle, and Nespresso, but most of the time, these are done by new startups. And I believe this picture shows why it is your customer that tells you, they don't want it, and you have no real incentive to invest in it and that creates the first difficulty