What separates an invention from an industry transformation? The story of the first handheld digital camera is a useful lens. It’s not just a tale about pixels replacing film — it’s about incentives, timing, and the organisational choices that determine whether an invention becomes a new business or a slow-motion missed opportunity. For a detailed read on the origins, see the BBC Future article on the handheld digital camera, which I recommend as the starting point for any product leader thinking about legacy, disruption and timing.
Invention ≠ Win: why being first isn’t the same as winning
Kodak built the first handheld digital camera. That fact alone shouldn’t surprise anyone in product: large organisations often have the R&D capability to invent. What matters far more is what happens next. Kodak’s situation exposes a recurring truth: the business model that makes you successful can also make you blind to future markets.
Product leaders need to stop celebrating invention as an outcome. Invention is a starting point. The real question is: can the organisation reconfigure around a different set of customers, metrics and commercial models? Kodak’s challenge was not technical; it was organisational. That’s a lesson for every executive who equates patents or prototypes with long-term success.
The incumbent’s dilemma — why organisations choke on their own success
There are three structural causes that turn an invention into a missed opportunity:
- Incentives aligned to legacy revenue: If leadership rewards film sales, every discovery that cannibalises film looks like a problem, not an opportunity.
- Operational myopia: Manufacturing, distribution and supplier contracts create concrete friction against new models — digital distribution, software updates, platform ecosystems.
- Metrics mismatch: Short-term KPIs (margin per unit, channel profitability) hide long-term adoption signals (active users, platform engagement, ecosystem value).
Fujifilm is often cited as a counterexample: rather than cling to film alone, it diversified into healthcare and materials science, converting core capabilities into adjacent business models. See Fujifilm Holdings for their corporate evolution.
A concise playbook for product leaders
What should CPOs and CTOs do differently if they want to turn early invention into durable advantage? Here are practical steps, grounded in product practice and organisation design.
1. Constantly re-ask “why”
Every new tech discovery needs a clear problem statement and a target user. Ask who benefits and how the organisation will monetise that benefit. Inventors often stop at technology; product leaders must keep moving towards a value proposition.
2. Protect the new business with different rules
Create a separate product environment for exploratory bets: distinct funding, different metrics, and protected autonomy. Treat discovery as an ongoing investment, not a one-off project.
3. Fund the product, not the project
Replace big upfront capital allocation with staged funding tied to learning milestones. This reduces political pressure to ship early revenue-intensive features and gives teams room to iterate on product-market fit.
4. Use portfolio thinking
Manage both core and adjacent opportunities in a single portfolio so you can consciously accept cannibalisation when the long-term gain justifies it. This is strategic, not accidental.
5. Learn fast, fail small
Design experiments that surface customer value quickly. The goal is not to prove the technology — it’s to validate that customers will change behaviour. Metrics should include engagement and retention, not just early sales.
Spotlight: timing and ecosystems
Timing matters. Apple’s integration of cameras into the iPhone changed the user behaviour and economics of photography long before many camera-makers adapted. The lesson: an adjacent ecosystem change — a phone becoming the primary camera — can flip the economics overnight. Product leaders must watch adjacent markets as closely as their own product metrics.
Organisational mechanisms that actually work
Based on experience across telecoms, retail and energy, the following mechanisms help organisations avoid the Kodak trap:
- Dual operating models: one for scale, one for discovery, with clear handover points.
- Discovery metrics dashboards: track experiments centrally to inform funding decisions.
- Executive sponsorship with teeth: sponsors must accept portfolio losses and defend slow-burn opportunities in the boardroom.
All of these require cultural shifts. You cannot paper over them with agile ceremonies alone; incentives and funding must change.
Credit: This article builds on the reporting in the BBC Future piece on the handheld digital camera which provides essential historical context.
Looking ahead — what product leaders should do today
If you lead product or technology, pick one “Kodak risk” inside your organisation: a capability that could be disrupted by an adjacent ecosystem change. Treat it as a product discovery initiative, not a technology experiment. Reconfigure funding, protect the team from legacy KPIs, and set explicit learning milestones. The cost of a small, deliberate bet today is tiny compared with the strategic cost of ignoring a shift until it’s too late.
We live in a cycle of repeated platform changes — phones disrupted cameras, cloud disrupted servers, and AI is reshaping software assumptions now. The leaders who win won’t be those who invented the first prototype; they’ll be the ones who restructured their organisations to let the prototype become a product, and the product become a new, sustainable business.
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