[A note from Tugboat Institute: This week, we are publishing an article written before the COVID pandemic. Please note the author’s postscript at the end of this article, in which he comments on the connection of this topic to the impact of the pandemic.]

When we launched our Evergreen^® business, SmugMug, an online, subscription-based photo sharing and hosting service, we had no idea our business model was innovative. We knew it was logical, that it felt like the right thing to do, and that it solved a problem for our customers. For us, those were the key factors. We only realized later that the idea was a Pragmatic Innovation that would make us the first online consumer subscription service.