Continuing along the theme on how to do more with less, is a book called The Frugal Innovator by Charles Leadbeater published by Palgrave Macmillan, London UK, 2014. In the ideal world there is lots of money; in the real world we have finite resources. Frugal innovation tries to provide better solutions for more people by using fewer resources by doing things completely differently. If you never dared to dream the impossible dream or were not afraid to ask for something seemingly impossible this book is for you. While resources are very important, it is never about the amount of resources but doing with what you have and adapting.

Frugal people have to use the resources available to them – you can wish for something wonderful, but what is around them that can be used for their ability to solve the problem. The people tend to start with the people the large companies overlook (what are their problems often times it is the ability to pay); they prefer to do radical things with proven, often quite old fashion technologies which are known to work, familiar to consumers and easy to maintain. They welcome borrowing ideas and putting to a new use. They recycle, reuse, repurpose, remediate. They like nothing better than finding a new use for discarded, overlooked or wasted resources. They prefer simple, shared, social solutions. Simple because they are easy to use, make and maintain. Social to make it more affordable. Shared solutions to help people to learn from another. Frugal innovators have 4 main common features: they are lean, simple, social and clean. They learn from trail and error, experimentation and trying again. In many ways, frugal innovators are people who come from the family farm – on the farm there are all the problems and opportunities in running a farm. Most farms do not make a lot of money, so people learn to improvise or adapt or use what is on the farm. How does the land

There are many problems in the world, there are many solutions in the world. There will be readily available solutions at the top income level sector. The are more opportunities to help at the lowest income level sector but to start the innovator must ask for the impossible.

The first step towards creating a simple solution is to crate a simple product by reducing it to a basic core: the 20% of the features that create 80% of the value. For example: if you fly a low cost airline all you really want is cheap, safe and reliable. If you stayed in a Travelodge you received a clean bed, cupboard and shower. Complex products show off their multi-functionality; simple, frugal products hide their complexity.

When new products borrow from the old they are easier to learn how to use.

Frugal innovation creates better outcomes for more people, while using fewer resources, by developing completely different solutions.

At the core of frugal innovations are the four linked design principles: lean and simple, clean and social.

They are lean to eliminate waste in all forms. To be lean, frugal solutions have to be simple. Simple solutions can be used by more people, more easily. Innovations that can be lean and simple can be low-cost without being frugal. To be fully frugal they need to be clean – the rethinking, reuse, recycle, repurpose and remediate. In addition the solution needs to be social.

The reality is the frugal innovation is hard to manage because there are many moving parts, consumers may or may not see the benefits right away and frugal innovators are generalists who see connections between products.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, when investors heard about research and development it is generally aimed at the middle and upper income groups who can pay their bills. The process is rarely aimed at the lowest income groups of the world – although many could benefit. The great advances in technology – smaller size, more powerful chips movement from desktop to laptop has changed the abilities of people to access all the great things about the web. The reality in most of the world, the infrastructure to be on the web does not exist or is too expensive for many in the world. Frugal innovation can help make lives better for the world, but it starts with some resources.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.