Entrepreneurs love to talk about disrupting.

Most recently they have been disrupting finance.

Harvard’s Jim Heskett posits the idea that tech itself is ripe for disruption, especially if you agree with Clayton M. Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma.

Tech is ungainly for many of us.

Too much of it is developed by the young for the young

Both hardware and software are built by techies in love with the bleeding edge for early adopters and people captivated by potential — whether they will ever have use for it is incidental.

We’re told that the typical user of information technology today utilizes less than 5 percent of the capability made available by today’s hardware and software. A small number of basic functions repeatedly are put to good use by the typical user. They are the need-to-have functions. The functions thought by designers to be nice to have may enhance marketing efforts and satisfy software engineers’ desires to make complex things, but they largely go unused. For some, they even make access to “need to have” functions more confusing.

While many companies add (expensive) bells and whistles to drive growth, others work to provide a more minimalist approach that crushes competitors.

Heskett uses Intuit as an example of a company that focuses on consistently making its software simpler.

It did it by providing simple and inexpensive solutions to everyday problems. Scott [Cook, Intuit co-founder] likes to say that Intuit had 47th mover advantage, in part because it adopted a strategy that identified the pencil as the company’s most important competitor.

Does Heskett’s idea have legs? Is tech, in fact, ripe for Intuit-quality disruption?

If you have strong feelings or thoughts on the subject be sure to add your thoughts to the open forum; Even if you don’t comment it’s worth following; Heskett’s ideas always draw eclectic, well thought-through responses from his audience.

Image credit: Harvard Business School

Do you read Agnes? A few days ago she asked her friend if she was superstitious; when her friend said not often Agnes told her she was sortofstitious. Agnes then made an over-the-top superstitious comment and her friend said she was megastitious.

The wordplay got me thinking.

In reality, most entrepreneurs are superpreneurs or they won’t make any headway.

Then there are the megapreneurs who manage to innovate, create successful companies and then do it again (think Tony Hsieh) or stay in the same place and keep innovating (think Steve Jobs, the Google Guys or Intuit’s Scott Cook).

However, there are still plenty of sortofpreneurs, who create me-too businesses (think daily deals), that stand little chance of success (although they often get funding), instead of real innovation.

They have may have the passion of a superpreneur, but in their rush to riches they want to skate—not innovate, i.e.,

• not solve a problem that needs solving or create something that nobody even knows they want;
• not provide real value to stakeholders; and
• not create an entity that provides jobs and futures to its people.

It’s not that sortofpreneurs can’t become superpreneurs, but to do so they need to give up (relatively) instant gratification and be willing to both slog and pivot as necessary.

A tall order for someone who is in it for the money.

Flickr image credit: 401(K) 2013