Gov Daswani reveals the real reason most innovations fail

Gov Daswani, beyond any hyperbole, is one of the Philippines’ leading innovation strategists. 

He delivered a TEDx talk at the British School Manila discussing why humans are often resistant to innovation. According to him, our brains are designed to prioritize survival and stability, which makes embracing new ideas and technologies a challenge.

He emphasized that innovation typically fails because people do not immediately see its value.

“Seven out of eight innovations fail,” Daswani pointed out, adding that these innovations are often not adopted quickly enough to succeed. 

The issue, he said, lies not in the potential of the innovation itself, but in how people perceive it. “Innovation is only embraced when it becomes necessary, rather than a luxury,” Daswani explained.

Daswani used the example of GCash, the Philippines’ leading mobile wallet service, to illustrate this point. Launched in 2004, GCash was slow to gain mainstream acceptance. 

“GCash wasn’t a must-have until 2020,” Daswani said, highlighting how it was only during the COVID-19 pandemic that the service became essential for many Filipinos. The pandemic made contactless payments necessary, and GCash saw a sharp rise in users, reaching 94 million and processing over 1.5 trillion pesos in transactions. 

Daswani emphasized that the app’s success was not due to its groundbreaking technology, but rather its timely response to an urgent need.

“Innovation must create urgency to survive,” he said.

In his talk, Daswani also compared GCash to Empessa, a mobile payment system in Kenya. Launched in 2007, Empessa quickly became an essential service for transferring money between rural and urban areas, gaining millions of users in just a few years. 

Empessa’s success, according to Daswani, was due to its immediate relevance in solving a problem that people could not ignore. 

“Empessa succeeded because it met a clear, immediate need,” he noted. Unlike GCash, which took years to achieve widespread adoption, Empessa was a “must-have” from the outset, driven by a pressing need for financial inclusion.

Daswani’s core message was that successful innovation must be driven by urgency, not idealism. 

“Innovations grounded in present-day needs are more likely to be adopted than those based on idealized visions of the future,” he said. 

He emphasized that while idealistic visions of a better future can inspire innovation, they are not enough to ensure widespread acceptance. Innovations need to solve real, immediate problems, and for that to happen, the creators must be focused on addressing current issues, not just imagining a better future.

In his conclusion, Daswani urged innovators to shift their focus. “Get mad at the present,” he urged, explaining that frustration with the current state of affairs is the key to creating innovations that people cannot live without. 

He finished with a call to action, quoting the famous lines from Dylan Thomas: “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” According to Daswani, it is this “rage” against the present that fuels innovation that has the potential to change the world.