#14-2025 🚫 No, You Don’t Need to Reinvent the Wheel
Just challenge what everyone else assumes is untouchable.
When people talk about innovation, they often imagine moonshots: AI breakthroughs, billion-dollar funding rounds, radical new inventions.
But many of the most iconic brands didn’t invent something new.
They looked at what already existed - and made one smart move that nobody else saw coming.
Sometimes that move is eliminating something everyone else considers essential.
Other times, it’s about serving people the market has written off.
Or simply making a painful process easy.
Here are three examples worth stealing:
🧹 Cirque du Soleil - Innovation by subtraction
Forget lions, tigers, and slapstick clowns. When Cirque launched, they asked a bold question: What if we removed the very things that define the circus?
They got rid of animals and childish gimmicks - and elevated everything else: music, lighting, costume design, narrative.
The result? A billion-dollar entertainment brand that appealed to adults willing to pay premium prices for a reimagined experience.
🧰 Canva - Design without the learning curve
Design used to require Photoshop licenses and hours of tutorials.
Canva flipped the model: drag-and-drop tools, beautiful templates, and no steep learning curve.
They didn’t chase pro designers - they empowered everyone else: marketers, teachers, creators.
What looked like a simple interface turned into a business worth over $25 billion.
🚪 Nickel (France) - Banking for the unbanked
Traditional banks didn’t want them: migrants, gig workers, people without credit histories.
Nickel built an entirely new path. Open a basic account in 5 minutes at a local convenience store. No overdrafts. No discrimination. Just inclusion.
They now serve over 3 million customers - and proved that untapped markets are often hidden in plain sight.
These aren’t anomalies.
They’re part of a pattern - what we call outside-the-box strategies - that businesses of all sizes can use to stand out.
And the best part? You don’t need a huge team or millions in funding to do it.
We’ve collected 12 proven ways to innovate without inventing.
The brands that used them range from solo founders to global giants - and each one challenged the assumptions of their industry.
Your next big move might come from questioning the obvious.
Read how to Innovate Outside the Box: 12 Cross-Industry Strategies for Bold Brands
