Inside Steadybit’s Innovation Time Strategy: How Side Projects Become Successful Products
The myth of the startup usually involves a founder taking a massive leap of faith. But in a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Benjamin Wilms revealed how Steadybit emerged from a more structured approach to innovation – one that turned healthy skepticism into a successful product without requiring an all-or-nothing bet.
The Power of Structured Innovation
Steadybit’s story begins with a corporate innovation policy that closely resembled Google’s famous 20% time. “I was able to spend one day a week it’s like this plus one model we all know from Google and other companies from the old days where you can spend time to train yourself, teach yourself, get more experience and specific development skills,” Benjamin explains.
This structured approach to innovation provided more than just time – it offered a safety net for experimentation. The company culture encouraged not just development, but sharing: “to do public speaking, to do conference talks, to share open source stuff, to create an open source project.”
Finding Problems Worth Solving
The key to effective innovation time wasn’t just having the freedom to explore – it was having a concrete problem to solve. Benjamin’s opportunity came when joining a project near release: “I was not very confident that we will survive the first release in production.”
Rather than just raising concerns, he used his innovation time to explore solutions: “That’s where I started with chaos engineering in my plus one time to take a look at chaos engineering, to learn the principles, to see what other people are doing.”
Validating Through Real-World Testing
The transition from concept to validation came through practical application. Benjamin describes the crucial moment: “I was able to convince my team, okay, guess what? We are doing a load test, the end to end test. And I will inject bad behavior doing the test.”
The results provided immediate validation: “Were not very successful because everything was like collapsing. The system was not able to handle the load under specific conditions.” This practical demonstration proved more valuable than any theoretical validation could have been.
Building Credibility Through Sharing
The innovation time structure encouraged more than just development – it created opportunities for validation through community sharing. “I was able to talk about this approach to my colleagues… I was able to do public speaking at conferences. I was able to create my own chaos engineering team to do trainings at other companies.”
This public validation caught the attention of decision-makers, leading to unexpected opportunities. Benjamin recalls the pivotal moment: “Benjamin, I was able to see what you have achieved in the last twelve months. You should do more. Here’s some money. I will support you with my network. You should create your own company.”
From Side Project to Full Company
The transition from side project to company came with clear constraints: “It was like six months money for six months on the bank account. So I need to provide something and I need to deliver something.” This pressure helped maintain the focused, problem-solving approach that had characterized the innovation time phase.
The strategy proved successful when their first customer came from the United States, followed quickly by investor interest: “On a Tuesday my phone ringed and there was a number from New York and I don’t have any friends in New York.”
For technical founders considering how to validate new ideas, Steadybit’s journey offers valuable lessons about structured innovation. Their success suggests that the best path to building a successful product might not be quitting your job to go all-in, but rather finding ways to systematically validate ideas while maintaining stability.
The key is to use structured innovation time not just for development, but for real-world validation and community building. This approach allows technical founders to test their ideas thoroughly before making bigger commitments, potentially leading to more sustainable and successful ventures.