What we really see in a eureka moment is clarity. Clarity that has been prepared for over weeks, months, or sometimes even years. It requires your knowledge, your experiences, and the ability to hold all of the necessary threads until the last piece falls into place.
Real innovation is, therefore, a result of many false starts and sometimes even false beliefs that need to be systematically tested. It is a process, not just an initial spark. Even the initial spark might be based on flawed information. And it too must be tested.
Ideas are not innovations
Ideas are just the beginning of the innovation process. Everyone has ideas every day. Some people believe that there is value in their ideas and they get paranoid about sharing them. And sure, there might be some that have real potential, but for the most part, the idea is the easiest part.
An idea is an intangible concept, which holds no value without action. An invention is the creation of a new product, device or process. Innovation is the implementation of the invention or idea to create new value for the business or the users. The application of an invention makes it an innovation. Not all ideas are inventions nor innovations, but all inventions and innovations are ideas. Ideas are the starting point but without action, they are worthless.
The real anatomy of innovation
So innovations are built over time, not in an instant. This can be done behind closed doors without anyone paying attention, like the accidental invention of the sticky note. Or it can be done with many people paying attention, such as electrification.
In all these cases, innovation requires curiosity, experimentation, and persistence. Without them, ideas never make anything real. Innovation is a process that requires the person to care so much about the problem that they are willing to try many different things to solve it over a length of time. So, sharing ideas is one thing, but it means nothing if nobody is willing to put in the time and effort it will take to make them real.
An example of this is Thomas Edison’s light bulb work. While he did not invent the light bulb concept, he improved the light bulb so that it became commercially viable to use for extended periods of time. After inventing the phonograph in 1877, he immediately began working on improving the light bulb which then could only work for a few minutes. By 1879, he had a bamboo version working for over 13 hours and soon after another version for 40 hours (Thomas Edison Center).
Edison worked on the light bulb for almost two years to find the right elements to combine. He is often quoted as saying “I did not fail, I just found 10000 ways that did not work”. There are many versions of this quote, but they all represent the same meaning – innovation is a process of experimentation and elimination, not of failure. This process requires persistence and a love for the problem that is being solved.
Another, more modern, example of these three elements – curiosity, experimentation, and persistence – is the Dyson vacuum cleaner. Dyson himself has said on many occasions that it was the result of a 5,127-step process over five years to create it and only on the last attempt did it work. He notes that you can only change one thing at a time (Birkenshaw and Brewis 2016). Neither of these examples is a sudden eureka moment, they are processes that take time and persistence.
The five skills that fuel innovation
In the book Innovator’s DNA, the authors set out five skills that an innovator should possess (Dyer et al. 2011):
- Associating: making connections between different ideas, questions, or problems, seemingly unrelated to creating new insights.
- Questioning: challenging the status quo and asking why and what if to probe to the root of problems.
- Observing: consistently and intensely watching the world around you to identify small details that lead to noticing unmet needs or new opportunities.
- Networking: proactively seeking new opinions, perspectives, and ideas to engage with people from various backgrounds and industries.
- Experimenting: actively engaging in new experiences, trying new ideas, testing your hypotheses, and learning what works and what doesn’t.
These five skills take time to foster as well as to utilise, and they can only be learned through practice. You cannot read about them in a book and then claim to have them. This is another indication that innovation does not happen quickly but through methodical preparation, seeking, and testing.
The danger of the myth
The myth of the eureka moment persists because it is akin to a ‘Hollywood moment’. It is easier to depict than this long process. But for a eureka moment to happen, you need to have been working on the problem for quite a while. The rest of the story is already swirling around in your head. Like the English idiom ‘the penny dropped’, meaning to say that “someone finally understands something after not understanding it for a time” (Merriam-Webster n.d.). It means that the question has been tossed around in someone’s mind for a long time. It didn’t just suddenly pop in there, which is how eureka moments are generally explained by those who want to romanticise them or create a good story to sell something. This myth is disingenuous at best and harmful at worst because it makes it seem as if you can just sit around waiting for this moment to happen. It encourages the opposite of what is necessary, while discouraging curiosity, experimentation, and persistence.
Focus on real innovation to get real results
It is important that everyone involved in innovation and those who have budgetary responsibility for it understand that there is this need for time, persistence, experimentation, and curiosity. They need to allow time for observing problems, testing solutions, and learning from experiments that do not work (and stop calling those failures).
The same applies to entrepreneurs who are trying to solve problems. You need to have time to gather the threads, hear and seek out different perspectives, ask questions, do customer research, listen to others and try over and over again. Everyone can innovate because it isn’t about waiting for inspiration; it is about centring the problem you are trying to solve and not giving up too soon and cultivating these process habits.
In reality, innovation is the result of a toolbox and time. Embody curiosity, experimentation, and persistence and continue to practise the 5 skills listed above and you can be on your way to your own discoveries. Waiting for lightning to strike in a eureka moment is time wasted when you could be working on creating your own perfect storm.
References
Birkinshaw, J., Brewis, K. -.2016. If at first you don’t succeed…. Think blog for London Business School. Published 12 October 2016. https://www.london.edu/think/diie-innovation-icons-dyson. Accessed 4 February 2026.
Dyer, J. H., Gregersen, H. B., and Christensen, C.L. 2011. The Innovator’s DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary n.d. Available at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/the%20penny%20drops. Accessed 7 February 2026.
Thomas Edison Center n.d. Thomas Edison and Menlo Park. https://www.menloparkmuseum.org/history. Accessed 7 February 2026.
Author
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Pamela Spokes
Specialist, TurbiiniPamela Spokes BA, MA, MBA, AmO. Educator in Service Design and Entrepreneurship with the Turbiini Pre-Incubator Programme in English.
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