Digital assets firm Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) is introducing Project 10 Percent: “Building a culture of repeatable innovation at Coinbase.”
Surojit Chatterjee, Chief Product Officer, noted that innovation is “a lot like exercise,” because you need to “approach it with discipline, or you can easily fall out of habit.”
Chatterjee explained that managing innovation can be easier when a firm is just starting out, as there may be significantly fewer products, people and processes to manage. However, as a company expands its business operations, it becomes a lot more challenging, Chatterjee added while noting that “creating sustainable, repeatable innovation at scale is one of the greatest challenges for technology companies today.”
Chatterjee further noted:
“From the beginning, Coinbase has created a culture of continuous innovation, and as a result, it’s become a place where innovators and entrepreneurs thrive. We make it easy for employees to dream up new ideas, build new products, and bring them to market. As Coinbase scaled, we asked ourselves: how can we make sure Coinbase remains an “idea factory,” and how can we tap into the creativity of all of our employees?”
He added:
“Our answer is Project 10 Percent, a new internal program designed to manage our disruptive innovation bets. The “10 Percent” refers to the amount of resources we’re dedicating to supporting these big bets in line with our philosophy that 70% of our time should be focused on core work, 20% on strategic bets, and 10% on innovative experimentation.”
He also commented on how they define “disruptive innovation” that becomes “10 Percent projects.” He explained that they’re “defined by their potential impact to the business — creating step-function change in our users, metrics, or capabilities.”
He further noted that these 10 Percent projects are “managed differently.”
Chatterjee continued:
“To solicit great ideas, we invite all employees to complete a simple two page submission. In addition, we’ll host two Y Combinator-style pitch day events internally each year. We believe that innovation is part of everyone’s job; great ideas can and should come from anyone within the company.”
Chatterjee pointed out that they recognize the need to have “a high-risk tolerance.” He revealed that every quarter, Coinbase evaluates these initiatives to “measure progress to determine their path forward.” He clarified that “not all 10 Percent projects will make it” and, “that’s ok.” He claims that this is “by design.”
Chatterjee also mentioned that if they all succeed, then they “weren’t thinking big enough.” However, the ones that do succeed “should have a 10x impact and fundamentally move the crypto industry forward.” He claims that their most successful products today “started as disruptive bets.”
He also noted:
“It’s still early days for the cryptoeconomy. By maintaining our culture of repeatable innovation through these 10 Percent projects, we’ll be in a position to continue building powerful, simple, and compelling product experiences that define the future of our industry. We are hiring at levels across the organization, and we’re looking for entrepreneurs and creative problem solvers who are willing to take risks in order to advance our mission.”