It just hit me this morning why the US seems to dominate the world in the creation of innovative companies and products and I think we’ve gotten it all wrong. The Americans aren’t better than the rest of us at research and development and product creation, they’re just better at us in market development.

If you’ve been following my recent research you’ll have seen that I’m on a path to discover why Canada lags many of its peers at the development of an innovation economy. My thesis is that our problem has been misunderstood for years and the problem is not that Canada fails at research and development, patenting or financing startups. The problem is that we’re no good at market development.

I’ve recently started to look at why the US is so good at launching new products and companies. The general consensus seems to be that the US and in particular Silicon Valley is more innovative than the rest of us. But wait a second, this is the country that hasn’t adopted the metric system or replaced low denomination paper currency with coins. This is the country without universal medical care, that still executes citizens, even minors. It is a country with a completely dysfunctional political system and one that is still embroiled in debates over abortion and gay marriage while the rest of the world has moved on. Is this evidence that they lead the world at innovation?

Despite what they claim about innovation and what we think, I think they’re wrong. There is no evidence that the US is better than the rest of us at research and product development. But if they seem to be so good at creating products and companies, what are they better at? I think they’re better at market development.

Over the years across the US, entrepreneurs and companies have perfected the art of market research and in particular design thinking. They have perfected product marketing, developing alliances through business development. They have perfected marketing communications and even more so, sales. They have perfected the art of incubation through such entities as Y Combinator. They have perfected the use of private venture capital and how to best assist the companies reach markets through the assistance these VC firms provide. They have created a machine that can turn average research into world-leading products and companies.

If we want to improve our ability to help innovative new products reach markets we have to stop focusing on the research and development side and focus, as the US has on market development.

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