Leader Spotlight: The process of novel innovation, with Dr. Steven Lee

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Dr. Steven Lee is Director of Digital Innovation at Zenni Optical, an ecommerce store for stylish and affordable eyewear. With a bachelor’s in engineering, a doctorate in optometry, and an MBA, he has served in various roles within the healthcare space. Steven founded Visibly, a Chicago-based healthcare technology company, where he worked for seven years before becoming CEO of VisionPros (acquired by CloudMD). He is an advisor and board member for various technology companies and has been with Zenni Optical for almost two years.

We sat down with Steven and discussed his experience with creating and patenting novel innovations. He talks about the importance of pushing innovation forward and his philosophy to look at failure as learning opportunities.

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Building products from scratch

Could you talk about the foundational strategies that you prioritize in building products from zero to one?

I love building from scratch, particularly in a complex and regulated field like eye care. With my background in engineering and optics, I have always found joy in such challenges. I have foundational strategies that revolve around a few different pillars.

The first is understanding the problem, which I think is really important. I start by deeply immersing myself in the challenges faced by both the patients as well as the practitioners. This involves a lot of market research, consultations with different experts, and staying abreast of the latest technologies and regulatory developments. And when it comes to telemedicine, one example is understanding not just the technical aspects of delivering remote care, but also the nuances in patient-doctor interactions and the legal frameworks governing telehealth.

The second is iterative development. I’m a strong advocate when it comes to building, and I specifically advocate for building in small, testable increments — allowing for continuous feedback and adjustments. This is particularly important in eye care, where the stakes are high and precision is critical. By really developing prototypes, you can conduct a lot of early tests and identify and resolve issues before they become bigger things to deal with.

The third is user-centered design. This ensures that the end product is not only functional but is also intuitive and accessible. When we look at eye care, for instance, there’s a wide range of users — from highly trained professionals to patients — all with different levels of tech-savviness. It’s critical that the product is easy to use and addresses the real needs of the users. At Zenni, this approach has been super fundamental in developing tools that are not only innovative but also super practical and user-friendly as well.

Do you have an example of either a feature or a tool that was designed at Zenni with those user-centered frameworks in mind?

A great example is Zenni’s visual search tool. We’re one of the first to have implemented such a tool. It’s unique because when you shop for glasses, you look for a certain shape or style that might suit you. You might see someone with a pair of frames that you really like but have no idea how to search for that type of look. It’s difficult even for the folks who are in the industry.

So, we created an innovative tool that allows you to take a photo of anyone — on a screen, in real life, etc. You could pause the movie you’re watching on Netflix, take a photo of the actor who’s wearing the frame, upload it to our website, and our tool will search our database to find something really similar. Many times, it will be exactly what you’re looking for, which is fantastic.

Scaling from ideation to launch

After you build something, you need to scale it. How do you think about the team dynamics or how you structure your teams for efficient scaling?

Team dynamics are vital to any successful project. When it comes to understanding the different dynamics and growth stages of a company, there are a few aspects that allow for this rapid growth — agility, autonomy, and cross-functional collaboration.

Agility is essential for a fast-paced environment. I touched on it earlier. I favor small, focused teams that can quickly pivot and adapt to new information or challenges. These teams are usually empowered to make decisions, which accelerates the development process and fosters a sense of ownership and accountability.

Autonomy touches on what I just mentioned, but you also want to make sure that structured teams have the resources and the authority to drive the projects forward independently. This reduces bottlenecks and enables faster progress as well. At Zenni, we curated a team outside of the main core organizational structure for rapid iteration. I lead this team, and we work on several really fun projects, both in the ecommerce and virtual reality spaces. This has allowed us to innovate without being constrained by the larger company processes.

The last piece is cross-functional collaboration. This is important because it ensures that all the relevant perspectives are considered from the outset. I bring together diverse skill sets like engineering, design, marketing, and legal to work collaboratively from day one. This not only assists in identifying potential issues but it also helps product development. It aligns with the broader business strategy as well.

What are some challenges that you’ve faced during the ideation phase?

Ideation is very fun. I think one of the most significant challenges of this phase is navigating uncertainty, both in terms of technical feasibility and also market demand. And in complex fields like ours where innovation often intersects with regulations, the uncertainty is sometimes compounded. For me, to overcome the challenges, I focus on a lot of rigorous validation but also iterative experimentation.

I like to start by clearly defining the problem we’re trying to solve and then generating a wide range of potential solutions where the ideas are quickly prototyped and tested. This gives us real-world feedback before we commit significant resources. At Zenni, when we faced some challenges in integrating advanced technologies such as AI and VR into our offerings, we conducted a number of small-scale pilots gathering data and focusing on user interactions. We were able to refine our approach and ensure that the final product met our highest standards and customers’ needs.

The end-to-end patent process

You also have several patents in the eye care space. Can you talk a little bit about the process of patenting?

I’ve been really lucky to have so many first-hand learnings in going through the patent process. Before joining Zenni, I was granted about 15 patents, with a few others pending. At Zenni, I have worked really hard on improving the patent landscape. In general, the patenting process is a critical component to protecting innovations, particularly in the vision care space where IP can be a strong competitive advantage.

The first part of the process is conceptualization, which is when you’re coming up with an idea. Then, innovation detailing explains how it solves a specific problem in a novel way. The word “novel” is critical here because it needs to be something new and different that’s also useful to society. It’s important to clearly articulate the uniqueness of the idea and ensure it meets patentability criteria.

Of course, you have to do a prior art search to identify any existing patents or publications that could have touched on the novelty of the idea that you’ve come up with. This ensures that your idea is not going to be rejected by the patent office. The next piece is patent drafting, which involves working closely with patent attorneys and writing a detailed application that covers all the aspects of the invention. This includes defining the scope of the claims to protect the core innovation while allowing room for future developments. Claims are actually one of the most important parts of a patent because they mention what the invention specifies it’s going to do.

A lot of times, you might have a patent that’s hundreds of pages long. One tip for folks is to jump to the last page, where you’ll see the list of claims. Sometimes there are 10 or 20 of them — this is one of the most critical pieces to look at when you’re reviewing a patent. This section lists exactly what the patent claims makes the idea different from others out there. Finally, the last step is filing the patent with the relevant authorities. If you’re filing in the US, it’s the USPTO. This can be lengthy, but it’s also essential for securing legal protection for the innovation.

How long does the process take on average? Do you have a range from your conception stage to the actual filing itself?

On average, it can range from about eight months to about two years from the start of ideation to what we call patent prosecution. Prosecution is basically when you, the inventor, will have interviews with a patent examiner. They’ll ask you many different questions. Sometimes, they’ll try to challenge what you’ve come up with. They may question whether the idea is really novel. For example, the patent examiner may say, “Well, there’s a lot of prior art out there on this.”

Your job as the inventor is to rebuke that and come up with reasons why your idea is new or novel. If you’re going to get the patent granted, it usually takes about two years or so, but there are some ways to speed that up. There are different tracks within the patent examination process you can use to go a little faster or a little slower.

Pushing innovation forward

You mentioned heading up the digital innovation team. What is your approach to promoting a culture of innovation?

Innovation starts with leadership. At Zenni, we have a culture of pushing great technologies and great innovation forward. That’s one reason I really love it here. Promoting a culture of innovation starts with empowerment, encouragement to take risks, and also continuous learning.

Empowerment means giving teams the autonomy to explore new ideas and ownership of those projects. At Zenni, everyone’s ideas are valued, and decision-making is in general pretty decentralized. Encouragement of risk taken is also crucial. Innovation often involves venturing into the unknown, and that requires a willingness to experiment and then also fail. That word is scary to some, but when you’re coming up with new ideas, you don’t know how they’re going to turn out. You need to be willing to try new things.

I create a safe space where failure is seen as a learning opportunity rather than a setback. This mindset encourages team members to push the boundaries and explore unconventional solutions. The last piece to touch on is continuous learning, which I think is integral to fostering innovation.I ensure that my teams have access to the latest tools, resources, industry knowledge, etc., and that I provide opportunities for professional development. We ensure innovation is not a one-time thing, but remains continuous.

You’ve talked a fair amount about prototyping and testing new ideas. When you’re scaling a product or a feature how do you ensure that doesn’t comprise the more innovative aspects of the product itself?

Ensuring that scaling doesn’t compromise the innovative aspects involves maintaining the core vision, ensuring quality control, and also adapting the business model as needed. When it comes to maintaining the core vision, as the product scales, it’s important to stay true to the original intent and purpose of the innovation. This requires clear communication of the product’s value to all stakeholders and ensuring that any changes that are made are aligned with this vision.

Quality control is another super important aspect. Scaling often introduces new variables that can affect a product’s performance or the user experience. Implementing quality assurance processes ensures that the product’s innovative features are preserved as it reaches a larger audience. Last is adapting the business model. This is necessary to support the innovation at scale because this can involve revisiting pricing strategies, distribution channels, customer support systems, etc.

Setting expectations and viewing failure as a learning opportunity

What’s your approach to stakeholder management? You mentioned that your founder is a huge proponent of innovation, but certainly there are lots of stakeholders throughout a company.

It’s very important. It’s vital to set expectations early on. Successful product development requires transparency, strong, consistent communication, and setting realistic milestones. You need to build trust with all the stakeholders — not just with the founder, but the entire leadership team and the other folks involved in the company.

I believe in being upfront with the challenges and uncertainties that come with developing any new product. There will always be some, and this includes sharing potential risks and rewards to set realistic expectations. Consistent communication helps us ensure that the stakeholders are kept in the loop throughout the development process.

Earlier, you said that you believe that failures are more like learning. Do you have an example you could share that shines light on that value?

At a previous company, we attempted to develop an online tool for custom recommendations. The idea was to use algorithms to analyze user data and provide a customized solution, but while the idea was super promising, one of the issues at hand, which was not enough validation went in from the get-go. The data that we collected wasn’t as comprehensive as we needed, which led to suboptimal recommendations. There were also some underestimations of the complexity of integrating with existing systems, which resulted in some delays and increased costs.

From that experience, there were a lot of good learnings. One was the importance of understanding all of the validation points, and making sure there’s a solid plan of attack before committing to a full-scale development. It also reinforced the need for robust data collection methods and the importance of involving all relevant stakeholders early on to ensure something is completely compatible and also feasible.

The last big learning was the value of being adaptable. Initially, when digging through the project wasn’t working, the team was able to pivot and focus on improving the core offerings rather than pushing forward with a concept that wasn’t going to advance. The greatest thing was staying agile and being able to pivot quickly. These types of learning are very valuable to any company and any team.