Abstract. Breakthrough innovation can be interpreted as research translated into products that the market accepts. The process of market translation of several products developed by WowSystems, a Portuguese company specialized in novel interaction paradigms, is explained in this paper as a case study shedding some light into how innovation centers can better promote innovation, in the form of well-succeeded products. We describe two paradigmatic "tales from the trenches" and conclude with some guidelines that were outlined on the basis of more than three years delivering fifty interactive installations.