When launching a new project, I often tell teams: the maximum number of miracles is one.
Innovation thrives on bold ideas, but turning those ideas into businesses requires something more mundane — disciplined execution. A single breakthrough can justify the effort: a unique material, a novel biological process, or a new way of harnessing energy. But if your plan relies on multiple miracles, you’re betting on luck instead of building a business.
Take cultivated meat as an example. The miracle was clear: getting cells to grow outside the animal at industrial scale. Once that was proven, the focus shifted to eliminating unscalable steps, redesigning processes, and aligning R&D with cost reduction. The result was transformative — costs fell by more than 200× in just three years, bringing cultivated Wagyu beef within reach of consumers and setting the stage for industrial production.
The same lesson applies in other industries. In renewable materials, the “miracle” might be unlocking the chemistry that turns lignin into valuable products. In solar, it could be the nano-optics that increase panel efficiency. These sparks of innovation are essential — but on their own, they’re not enough. Without a relentless focus on scale-up, partnerships, financing, and operations, they risk staying forever in the lab.
And this is where the real challenge lies: commercialization and financing. Investors are cautious, capital is limited, and every unnecessary detour burns precious runway. That’s why defining your one miracle — and cutting out all the others — is critical. It ensures resources flow into the steps that move you decisively toward a viable business.
Here’s the paradox: limited innovation is actually better than unlimited innovation. When you create smart boundaries around what you’re trying to achieve, your chances of success increase exponentially. Instead of chasing every possibility, you focus your team, your capital, and your partnerships on the few things that will truly matter.
Intellectual property is the spark. Execution is the fire.
The companies that succeed are the ones that recognize this truth early: dreams become reality only when you reduce the need for miracles and build the systems that scale..