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This.</a></h2> <div class="postinfo"> Posted on <span class="postdate">October 5, 2024</span> by steve blank </div> <div class="entry"> <p>I got a call from an ex-student asking me “how do you know when you found product market fit?”</p> <p>There’s been lots of words written about it, but no actual recordings of the moment.<a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/product-market-fit.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="31665" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/10/05/what-does-product-market-fit-sound-like-this/product-market-fit-3/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/product-market-fit.jpg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1024,1024" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="product market fit" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/product-market-fit.jpg?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/product-market-fit.jpg?fit=468%2C468&ssl=1" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-31665" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/product-market-fit.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1" alt="" width="150" height="150" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/product-market-fit.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/product-market-fit.jpg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/product-market-fit.jpg?resize=768%2C768&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/product-market-fit.jpg?w=1024&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/product-market-fit.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /></a></p> <p>I remembered I had saved this 90 second, 26 year-old audio file because this is when I knew we had found it at Epiphany.</p> <p>The speaker was the the Chief Financial Officer of a company called Visio, subsequently acquired by Microsoft</p> <p>I played it for her and I think it provided some clarity.</p>  <audio class="wp-audio-shortcode" id="audio-31652-1" preload="none" style="width: 100%;" controls="controls"><source type="audio/wav" src="https://steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/NIEL.wav?_=1" /><a href="https://steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/NIEL.wav">https://steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/NIEL.wav</a></audio> <p>It’s worth a listen.</p> <p>If you can’t hear the audio click <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/15anS5ufUFayyKkmiVPit5TXSElzc_9y0/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a><br /> <iframe width="100%" height="91" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F1930910339&width=false&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&visual=false&show_comments=false&color=false&show_user=false&show_reposts=false"></iframe></p> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-print"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-print sd-button" href="https://steveblank.com/2024/10/05/what-does-product-market-fit-sound-like-this/" target="_blank" title="Click to print" ><span>Print</span></a></li><li class="share-email"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-email sd-button" href="mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20What%20Does%20Product%20Market%20Fit%20Sound%20Like%3F%20This.&body=https%3A%2F%2Fsteveblank.com%2F2024%2F10%2F05%2Fwhat-does-product-market-fit-sound-like-this%2F&share=email" target="_blank" title="Click to email a link to a friend" data-email-share-error-title="Do you have email set up?" data-email-share-error-text="If you're having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. 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The class had gotten so popular that in 2021 we started teaching it in both the winter and spring sessions.<a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Logo_LLP_320px.jpeg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="31167" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/06/27/lean-launchpad-stanford-2024-8-teams-in-8-companies-out/logo_llp_320px/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Logo_LLP_320px.jpeg?fit=320%2C170&ssl=1" data-orig-size="320,170" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Logo_LLP_320px" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Logo_LLP_320px.jpeg?fit=300%2C159&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Logo_LLP_320px.jpeg?fit=320%2C170&ssl=1" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-31167" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Logo_LLP_320px.jpeg?resize=150%2C80&ssl=1" alt="" width="150" height="80" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Logo_LLP_320px.jpeg?resize=150%2C80&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Logo_LLP_320px.jpeg?resize=300%2C159&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Logo_LLP_320px.jpeg?w=320&ssl=1 320w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">During the quarter the eight teams spoke to <strong>919</strong> potential customers, beneficiaries and regulators. Most students spent 15-20 hours a week on the class, about double that of a normal class.</p> <p>In the 14 years we’ve been teaching the class, we had something that has never happened before – <strong>all eight teams in this cohort have decided to start a company</strong>.</p> <p><strong>This Class Launched a Revolution in Teaching Entreprenurship</strong><br /> Several government-funded programs have adopted this class at scale. The first was in 2011 when we turned this syllabus into the curriculum for the <a href="https://new.nsf.gov/funding/initiatives/i-corps" target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Science Foundation I-Corps</a>. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/errol-arkilic-350b8/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Errol Arkilic</a>, the then head of commercialization at the National Science, adopted the class saying, “You’ve developed the scientific method for startups, using the Business Model Canvas as the laboratory notebook.”</p> <p><a href="applewebdata://4B3D561C-0929-4BCD-B70B-88FAF5119390#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1"></a>Below are the Lessons Learned presentations from the spring 2024 Lean LaunchPad.</p> <h3>Team Neutrix – Making Existing Nuclear Reactors More Profitable By Upgrading Their Fuel</h3> <p><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q6yLGfU_LyIpOg5thKvxc38M3HRCrC17/view"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="31076" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/06/27/lean-launchpad-stanford-2024-8-teams-in-8-companies-out/screenshot-11/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Neutrix-Video-title.jpg?fit=2784%2C1664&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2784,1664" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"Screenshot","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"Screenshot","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Screenshot" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Screenshot</p> " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Neutrix-Video-title.jpg?fit=300%2C179&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Neutrix-Video-title.jpg?fit=468%2C280&ssl=1" class="alignnone wp-image-31076 size-medium" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Neutrix-Video-title.jpg?resize=300%2C179&ssl=1" alt="" width="300" height="179" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Neutrix-Video-title.jpg?resize=300%2C179&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Neutrix-Video-title.jpg?resize=1024%2C612&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Neutrix-Video-title.jpg?resize=150%2C90&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Neutrix-Video-title.jpg?resize=768%2C459&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Neutrix-Video-title.jpg?resize=1536%2C918&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Neutrix-Video-title.jpg?resize=2048%2C1224&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Neutrix-Video-title.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Neutrix-Video-title.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">If you can’t see the Neutrix video, click <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q6yLGfU_LyIpOg5thKvxc38M3HRCrC17/view?usp=share_link">here</a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dVJLAwyCUWx4wzztgRRs8G7Sow_Ve3qr/view?usp=sharing"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="31079" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/06/27/lean-launchpad-stanford-2024-8-teams-in-8-companies-out/neutrix-title/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Neutrix-title.jpg?fit=720%2C405&ssl=1" data-orig-size="720,405" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Neutrix title" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Neutrix-title.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Neutrix-title.jpg?fit=468%2C263&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-31079" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Neutrix-title.jpg?resize=468%2C264&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="264" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Neutrix-title.jpg?w=720&ssl=1 720w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Neutrix-title.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Neutrix-title.jpg?resize=150%2C84&ssl=1 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a>If you can’t see the Neutrix Presentation, click <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dVJLAwyCUWx4wzztgRRs8G7Sow_Ve3qr/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a></p> <p><strong>I-Corps at the National Institute of Health<br /> </strong>In 2013 I partnered with <a href="https://www.ucsf.edu/">UCSF</a> and the National Institute of Health to offer the <a href="https://steveblank.com/2013/08/21/reinventing-life-science-startups-evidence-based-entrepreneurship-2/">Lean LaunchPad class for Life Science and Healthcare (therapeutics, diagnostics, devices and digital health.)</a> In 2014, in conjunction with the National Institute of Health, I took the UCSF curriculum and developed and launched the I<a href="https://seed.nih.gov/I-Corps-at-NIH">-Corps @ NIH </a>program.</p> <h3 style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Team Virgil – Capturing Memoirs of Loved Ones (and Using AI to Do It Profitably)</strong></h3> <p><a href="https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ekTKZxVVDlJJrunWQI4qoUM5a_fmmRFw"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="31082" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/06/27/lean-launchpad-stanford-2024-8-teams-in-8-companies-out/screenshot-12/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Virgil-Video-Title.jpg?fit=2848%2C1612&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2848,1612" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"Screenshot","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"Screenshot","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Screenshot" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Screenshot</p> " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Virgil-Video-Title.jpg?fit=300%2C170&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Virgil-Video-Title.jpg?fit=468%2C265&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-31082 size-large" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Virgil-Video-Title.jpg?resize=468%2C265&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="265" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Virgil-Video-Title.jpg?resize=1024%2C580&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Virgil-Video-Title.jpg?resize=300%2C170&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Virgil-Video-Title.jpg?resize=150%2C85&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Virgil-Video-Title.jpg?resize=768%2C435&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Virgil-Video-Title.jpg?resize=1536%2C869&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Virgil-Video-Title.jpg?resize=2048%2C1159&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Virgil-Video-Title.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Virgil-Video-Title.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">If you can’t see the Virgil video, click <a href="https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ekTKZxVVDlJJrunWQI4qoUM5a_fmmRFw">here</a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b39vyN2eknpV3fr4VXeU4L0rGvEHih3w/view?usp=sharing"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="31111" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/06/27/lean-launchpad-stanford-2024-8-teams-in-8-companies-out/virgil-title/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Virgil-title.jpg?fit=720%2C405&ssl=1" data-orig-size="720,405" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Virgil title" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Virgil-title.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Virgil-title.jpg?fit=468%2C263&ssl=1" class="alignright wp-image-31111 size-full" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Virgil-title.jpg?resize=468%2C263&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="263" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Virgil-title.jpg?w=720&ssl=1 720w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Virgil-title.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Virgil-title.jpg?resize=150%2C84&ssl=1 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a>If you can’t see the Virgil Presentation, click <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b39vyN2eknpV3fr4VXeU4L0rGvEHih3w/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here.</a></p> <p><strong>I-Corps at Scale<br /> </strong><a href="https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/i-corps/">I-Corps</a> is now offered in 100 universities and has <a href="https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/2023-06/TIP_I-CorpsReport_2023_Final_6.21.2023.508.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">trained over 9,500 scientists and engineers</a>; 7,800 in 2,546 teams in I-Corps at NSF (National Science Foundation), 950 participants at I-Corps at NIH in 317 teams, and 580 participants at Energy I-Corps (at the DOE) in 188 teams.</p> <h3 style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Team Claim CoPilot – Overturning Denied Healthcare Claims</strong></h3> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XkB0DYKKj1zbTVQ-u1KVXYUm_WpJcQuj/view?usp=sharing"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="31113" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/06/27/lean-launchpad-stanford-2024-8-teams-in-8-companies-out/claim-copilot-title/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Claim-Copilot-title.jpg?fit=720%2C405&ssl=1" data-orig-size="720,405" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Claim Copilot title" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Claim-Copilot-title.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Claim-Copilot-title.jpg?fit=468%2C263&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-31113 size-full" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Claim-Copilot-title.jpg?resize=468%2C263&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="263" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Claim-Copilot-title.jpg?w=720&ssl=1 720w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Claim-Copilot-title.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Claim-Copilot-title.jpg?resize=150%2C84&ssl=1 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a>If you can’t see the Claim Pilot Presentation, click <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XkB0DYKKj1zbTVQ-u1KVXYUm_WpJcQuj/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a></p> <p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GixjfAz_XgA"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="31201" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/06/27/lean-launchpad-stanford-2024-8-teams-in-8-companies-out/screenshot-17/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Claim-Copilot-video-title.jpg?fit=2624%2C1640&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2624,1640" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"Screenshot","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"Screenshot","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Screenshot" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Screenshot</p> " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Claim-Copilot-video-title.jpg?fit=300%2C188&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Claim-Copilot-video-title.jpg?fit=468%2C293&ssl=1" class="wp-image-31201 size-large" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Claim-Copilot-video-title.jpg?resize=468%2C293&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="293" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Claim-Copilot-video-title.jpg?resize=1024%2C640&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Claim-Copilot-video-title.jpg?resize=300%2C188&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Claim-Copilot-video-title.jpg?resize=150%2C94&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Claim-Copilot-video-title.jpg?resize=768%2C480&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Claim-Copilot-video-title.jpg?resize=1536%2C960&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Claim-Copilot-video-title.jpg?resize=2048%2C1280&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Claim-Copilot-video-title.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Claim-Copilot-video-title.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <p>If you can’t see the Claim CoPilot video of their demo click <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GixjfAz_XgA" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a></p> <p><strong>$4 billion in Venture Capital For I-Corps Teams</strong><br /> 1,380 of the NSF I-Corps teams launched startups raising $3.166 billion. Over 300 I-Corps at NIH teams have collectively raised $634 million. Energy I-Corps teams raised $151 million in additional funding.</p> <h3>Team Emy.ai – Using Brainwaves to Biohack Moods</h3> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HH9gJ6Oh-4Usbz_NkCinJTHzv9sggheD/view?usp=sharing"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="31115" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/06/27/lean-launchpad-stanford-2024-8-teams-in-8-companies-out/emi-video-tiitle/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Emi-video-tiitle.jpg?fit=1741%2C1417&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1741,1417" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Emi video tiitle" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Emi-video-tiitle.jpg?fit=300%2C244&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Emi-video-tiitle.jpg?fit=468%2C381&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-31115 size-medium" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Emi-video-tiitle.jpg?resize=300%2C244&ssl=1" alt="" width="300" height="244" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Emi-video-tiitle.jpg?resize=300%2C244&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Emi-video-tiitle.jpg?resize=1024%2C833&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Emi-video-tiitle.jpg?resize=150%2C122&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Emi-video-tiitle.jpg?resize=768%2C625&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Emi-video-tiitle.jpg?resize=1536%2C1250&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Emi-video-tiitle.jpg?w=1741&ssl=1 1741w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Emi-video-tiitle.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Emi-video-tiitle.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a>If you can’t see the Emy.ai video, click <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HH9gJ6Oh-4Usbz_NkCinJTHzv9sggheD/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IDvMiZE6go_RKiR8ViUpZTPpaoCn6j4L/view?usp=sharing"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="31117" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/06/27/lean-launchpad-stanford-2024-8-teams-in-8-companies-out/emy-ai-title/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Emy.ai-title.jpg?fit=720%2C405&ssl=1" data-orig-size="720,405" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Emy.ai title" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Emy.ai-title.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Emy.ai-title.jpg?fit=468%2C263&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-31117 size-full" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Emy.ai-title.jpg?resize=468%2C263&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="263" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Emy.ai-title.jpg?w=720&ssl=1 720w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Emy.ai-title.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Emy.ai-title.jpg?resize=150%2C84&ssl=1 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a>If you can’t see the Emy.ai Presentation, click <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IDvMiZE6go_RKiR8ViUpZTPpaoCn6j4L/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Mission Driven Entreprenurship<br /> </strong>In 2016, I co-created both the <a href="https://steveblank.com/category/hacking-for-defense/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hacking for Defense</a> course with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/petenewell/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pete Newell</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/joefelter/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Joe Felter</a> as well as the <a href="https://www.h4diplomacy.us/program-overview#:~:text=What%20is%20Hacking%20for%20Diplomacy,challenges%20using%20lean%20startup%20approaches." target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hacking for Diplomacy</a> course with <a href="https://politicalscience.stanford.edu/people/jeremy-weinstein" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jeremy Weinstein</a> at Stanford. In 2022, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sweinstein/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Steve Weinstein</a> created <a href="https://h4cs.stanford.edu/detail" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hacking for Climate and Sustainability</a>. This fall <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcarolan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jennifer Carolan</a> will launch Hacking for Education at Stanford.</span></p> <h3>Team TeachAssist – Automating Student Assessments for Special Education Teachers</h3> <p><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_ACyuYPsKgIt4LJcjOxRFaVsPDFbM9oP/view?usp=sharing"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="31119" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/06/27/lean-launchpad-stanford-2024-8-teams-in-8-companies-out/screenshot-14/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Teachasst-video-title.jpg?fit=2848%2C1700&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2848,1700" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"Screenshot","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"Screenshot","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Screenshot" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Screenshot</p> " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Teachasst-video-title.jpg?fit=300%2C179&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Teachasst-video-title.jpg?fit=468%2C279&ssl=1" class="wp-image-31119 size-large" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Teachasst-video-title.jpg?resize=468%2C279&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="279" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Teachasst-video-title.jpg?resize=1024%2C611&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Teachasst-video-title.jpg?resize=300%2C179&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Teachasst-video-title.jpg?resize=150%2C90&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Teachasst-video-title.jpg?resize=768%2C458&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Teachasst-video-title.jpg?resize=1536%2C917&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Teachasst-video-title.jpg?resize=2048%2C1222&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Teachasst-video-title.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Teachasst-video-title.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">If you can’t see the TeachAssist video, click <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_ACyuYPsKgIt4LJcjOxRFaVsPDFbM9oP/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/108StFSdiCjfoBW9Qm2p_1KMaDZiWIvWI/view?usp=sharing"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="31121" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/06/27/lean-launchpad-stanford-2024-8-teams-in-8-companies-out/teachassist-title/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/TeachAssist-title.jpg?fit=720%2C405&ssl=1" data-orig-size="720,405" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="TeachAssist title" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/TeachAssist-title.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/TeachAssist-title.jpg?fit=468%2C263&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-31121 size-full" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/TeachAssist-title.jpg?resize=468%2C263&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="263" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/TeachAssist-title.jpg?w=720&ssl=1 720w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/TeachAssist-title.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/TeachAssist-title.jpg?resize=150%2C84&ssl=1 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a>If you can’t see the TeachAssist Presentation, click <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/108StFSdiCjfoBW9Qm2p_1KMaDZiWIvWI/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a></p> <p><strong>Design of This Class<br /> </strong>While the Lean LaunchPad students are experiencing what appears to them to be a fully hands-on, experiential class, it’s a carefully designed illusion. In fact, it’s highly structured. The syllabus has been designed so that we are offering continual implicit guidance, structure, and repetition. This is a critical distinction between our class and an open-ended experiential class.</p> <p><em>Guidance, Direction and Structure<br /> </em>For example, students start the class with their own initial guidance – they believe they have an idea for a product or service (Lean LaunchPad/I-Corps) or have been given a clear real-world problem (<a href="https://steveblank.com/2016/01/26/hacking-for-defense-stanford/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hacking for Defense</a>). Coming into the class, students believe their goal is to validate their commercialization or deployment hypotheses. (The teaching team knows that over the course of the class, students will discover that most of their initial hypotheses are incorrect.)</p> <h3>Team Maurice.ai – A Home Robot for the GPT Era</h3> <p><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lYYJ36IgFG2T6b3AbwOof-GuRTTQlNDI/view?usp=sharing"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="31124" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/06/27/lean-launchpad-stanford-2024-8-teams-in-8-companies-out/screenshot-15/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Maurice-video-title.jpg?fit=2848%2C1700&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2848,1700" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"Screenshot","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"Screenshot","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Screenshot" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Screenshot</p> " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Maurice-video-title.jpg?fit=300%2C179&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Maurice-video-title.jpg?fit=468%2C279&ssl=1" class="wp-image-31124 size-large" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Maurice-video-title.jpg?resize=468%2C279&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="279" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Maurice-video-title.jpg?resize=1024%2C611&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Maurice-video-title.jpg?resize=300%2C179&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Maurice-video-title.jpg?resize=150%2C90&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Maurice-video-title.jpg?resize=768%2C458&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Maurice-video-title.jpg?resize=1536%2C917&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Maurice-video-title.jpg?resize=2048%2C1222&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Maurice-video-title.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Maurice-video-title.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">If you can’t see the Maurice.ai video, click <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lYYJ36IgFG2T6b3AbwOof-GuRTTQlNDI/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aeKAtMkB4VQVmbiA8vMdQT9zceRk7_iy/view?usp=sharing"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="31128" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/06/27/lean-launchpad-stanford-2024-8-teams-in-8-companies-out/mauriceai-title/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/MauriceAI-title.jpg?fit=720%2C405&ssl=1" data-orig-size="720,405" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="MauriceAI title" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/MauriceAI-title.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/MauriceAI-title.jpg?fit=468%2C263&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-31128 size-full" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/MauriceAI-title.jpg?resize=468%2C263&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="263" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/MauriceAI-title.jpg?w=720&ssl=1 720w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/MauriceAI-title.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/MauriceAI-title.jpg?resize=150%2C84&ssl=1 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a>If you can’t see the Maurice.ai Presentation, click <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aeKAtMkB4VQVmbiA8vMdQT9zceRk7_iy/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a></p> <p><strong>The Business Model Canvas<br /> </strong>The business/mission model canvas offers students guidance, explicit direction, and structure. First, the canvas offers a complete, visual roadmap of all the hypotheses they will need to test over the entire class. Second, the canvas helps the students goal-seek by visualizing what an optimal endpoint would look like – finding product/market fit. Finally, the canvas provides students with a map of what they learn week-to-week through their customer discovery work.</p> <p>I can’t overemphasize the important role of the canvas. Unlike an incubator or accelerator with no frame, the canvas acts as the connective tissue – the frame – that students can fall back on if they get lost or confused. It allows us to teach the theory of how to turn an idea, need, or problem into commercial practice, week by week a piece at a time.</p> <h3>Team Waifinder – Personalized Guidance For High School Students to Effectively Apply to College</h3> <p><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XWFrlkY1TgS2aOyaLOmdXz_fNhhjOlY5/view?usp=sharing"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="31130" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/06/27/lean-launchpad-stanford-2024-8-teams-in-8-companies-out/screenshot-16/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Waifinder-video-title.jpg?fit=2848%2C1700&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2848,1700" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"Screenshot","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"Screenshot","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Screenshot" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Screenshot</p> " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Waifinder-video-title.jpg?fit=300%2C179&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Waifinder-video-title.jpg?fit=468%2C279&ssl=1" class="alignnone wp-image-31130 size-large" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Waifinder-video-title.jpg?resize=468%2C279&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="279" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Waifinder-video-title.jpg?resize=1024%2C611&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Waifinder-video-title.jpg?resize=300%2C179&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Waifinder-video-title.jpg?resize=150%2C90&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Waifinder-video-title.jpg?resize=768%2C458&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Waifinder-video-title.jpg?resize=1536%2C917&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Waifinder-video-title.jpg?resize=2048%2C1222&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Waifinder-video-title.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Waifinder-video-title.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">If you can’t see the Waifinder video, click <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XWFrlkY1TgS2aOyaLOmdXz_fNhhjOlY5/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O0GF3ldWpOLMLc6jFCvYqyo5GMJlfWM8/view?usp=sharing"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="31131" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/06/27/lean-launchpad-stanford-2024-8-teams-in-8-companies-out/waifinder-title/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Waifinder-title.jpg?fit=720%2C405&ssl=1" data-orig-size="720,405" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Waifinder title" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Waifinder-title.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Waifinder-title.jpg?fit=468%2C263&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-31131 size-full" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Waifinder-title.jpg?resize=468%2C263&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="263" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Waifinder-title.jpg?w=720&ssl=1 720w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Waifinder-title.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Waifinder-title.jpg?resize=150%2C84&ssl=1 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a>If you can’t see the Waifinder Presentation, click <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O0GF3ldWpOLMLc6jFCvYqyo5GMJlfWM8/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a></p> <p><strong>Lean LaunchPad Tools</strong><br /> The tools for customer discovery (videos, sample experiments, etc.) offer guidance and structure for students to work outside the classroom. The explicit goal of 10-15 customer interviews a week along with the requirement for building a continual series of minimal viable products provides metrics that track the team’s progress. The mandatory office hours with the instructors and support from mentors provide additional guidance and structure.</p> <h3>Team PocketDot – Gamified Braille Self-Learning Solution for Braille Learners</h3> <p><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BmLqOfXdTq9DQpv2wx29W8LasVzjtaUV/view"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="31196" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/06/27/lean-launchpad-stanford-2024-8-teams-in-8-companies-out/pocketdot-video-title/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PocketDot-video-title.jpg?fit=1985%2C1110&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1985,1110" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="PocketDot video title" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PocketDot-video-title.jpg?fit=300%2C168&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PocketDot-video-title.jpg?fit=468%2C262&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-31196 size-large" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PocketDot-video-title.jpg?resize=468%2C262&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="262" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PocketDot-video-title.jpg?resize=1024%2C573&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PocketDot-video-title.jpg?resize=300%2C168&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PocketDot-video-title.jpg?resize=150%2C84&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PocketDot-video-title.jpg?resize=768%2C429&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PocketDot-video-title.jpg?resize=1536%2C859&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PocketDot-video-title.jpg?w=1985&ssl=1 1985w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PocketDot-video-title.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PocketDot-video-title.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a>If you cant see the PocketDot video click <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BmLqOfXdTq9DQpv2wx29W8LasVzjtaUV/view" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o1CuHAsuX7Tod-VEFWQOg5BY8YWFVpSa/view?usp=sharing"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="31134" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/06/27/lean-launchpad-stanford-2024-8-teams-in-8-companies-out/pocketdot-title/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PocketDot-title.jpg?fit=720%2C405&ssl=1" data-orig-size="720,405" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="PocketDot title" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PocketDot-title.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PocketDot-title.jpg?fit=468%2C263&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-31134 size-full" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PocketDot-title.jpg?resize=468%2C263&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="263" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PocketDot-title.jpg?w=720&ssl=1 720w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PocketDot-title.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PocketDot-title.jpg?resize=150%2C84&ssl=1 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a>If you can’t see the PocketDot Presentation, click <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o1CuHAsuX7Tod-VEFWQOg5BY8YWFVpSa/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a></p> <p><strong>It Takes A Village<br /> </strong>While I authored this blog post, this class is a team project. The secret sauce of the success of the Lean LaunchPad at Stanford is the extraordinary group of dedicated volunteers supporting our students in so many critical ways.</p> <p><em>The teaching team</em> consisted of myself and:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sweinstein/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Steve Weinstein</a><u>,</u> partner at <a href="https://americasfrontier.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener">America’s Frontier Fund</a>, 30-year veteran of Silicon Valley technology companies and Hollywood media companies. Steve was CEO of <a href="https://movielabs.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MovieLabs</a>, the joint R&D lab of all the major motion picture studios.</li> <li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lredden/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lee Redden</a> – CTO and co-founder of Blue River Technology (<a href="https://www.dcvc.com/news-insights/john-deere-acquires-blue-river-technology-for-305-million-bringing-full-stack-ai-to-agriculture/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">acquired by John Deere</a>) who was a student in the first Lean LaunchPad class 14 years ago!</li> <li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcarolan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jennifer Carolan</a>, Co-Founder, Partner at Reach Capital the leading education VC</li> <li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/scarolan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Shawn Carolan</a> Partner at Menlo Ventures.</li> </ul> <p>Our <em>teaching assistants</em> this year were Chapman Ellsworth, Francesca Bottazzini and Ehsan Ghasemi.</p> <p><em>Mentors</em> helped the teams understand if their solutions could be a commercially successful business. Thanks to Lofton Holder, Bobby Mukherjee, Steve Cousins, David Epstein, Kevin Ray, Rekha Pai, Rafi Holtzman and Kira Makagon. They were led by Todd Basche.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Summary<br /> </strong>While the Lean LaunchPad/I-Corps curriculum was a revolutionary break with the past, it’s not the end. In the last decade enumerable variants have emerged. The class we teach at Stanford has continued to evolve. Better versions from others will appear. AI is already having a major impact on customer discovery and validation. 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When can you come back and show us a prototype?”<a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/purchase-order.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="30745" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/04/16/founders-need-to-be-ruthless-when-chasing-deals/purchase-order/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/purchase-order.jpg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1024,1024" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="purchase order" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/purchase-order.jpg?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/purchase-order.jpg?fit=468%2C468&ssl=1" class="alignright wp-image-30745" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/purchase-order.jpg?resize=112%2C112&ssl=1" alt="" width="112" height="112" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/purchase-order.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/purchase-order.jpg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/purchase-order.jpg?resize=768%2C768&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/purchase-order.jpg?w=1024&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/purchase-order.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 112px) 100vw, 112px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">This can be the beginning of a profitable customer relationship or a disappointing sinkhole of wasted time, money, resources, and a demoralized engineering team.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">It all depends on one question every startup CEO needs to ask.</p> <hr /> <p style="font-weight: 400;">I was having coffee and pastries with Justin, an ex-student, listening to him to complain over the time he wasted with a potential customer. He was building a complex robotic system for factories. “We spent weeks integrating the sample data they gave us to build a functional prototype, and then after our demo they just ghosted us. I still don’t know what happened!”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">After listening to how he got into that predicament, I realized it sounded exactly like the mistake I had made selling enterprise software.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Enthusiasm Versus Validation<br /> </strong>Finding product/market fit is the holy grail for startups. For me, it was a real rush when potential users in a large company loved our slideware and our minimum viable product (MVP). They were ecstatic about the time the product could save them and started pulling others into our demos. A few critical internal recommenders and technical evaluators gave our concept the thumbs up. Now we were in discussions with the potential buyers who had the corporate checkbook, and they were ready to have a “next step” conversation.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">This buyer wanted us to transform our slideware and MVP into a demonstration of utility with their actual data. This was going to require our small, overcommitted engineering team to turn the MVP into a serviceable prototype.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">When I heard a potential customer offer us their own internal customer data I was already imagining popping Champagne corks once we showed them our prototype. (For context, our products sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and lifetime value to each customer was potentially measured in millions.) I rallied our engineering team to work for the next few months to get the demo of the prototype ready. As much as we could, we integrated the customers’ users and technical evaluators into our prototype development process. Then came the meeting with the potential customer. And it went great. The users were in the room, the buyer asked lots of questions, everyone made some suggestions and then we all went home. And the follow up from the potential customer? Crickets…</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Even our user advocates stopped responding to emails.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>What did I do wrong?<br /> </strong>In my unbridled and very naive enthusiasm for impressing a potential customer, I made a rookie mistake –<em> I never asked the user champion or the potential buyer what were the steps for turning the demo into a purchase order</em>. I had made a ton of assumptions – all of them wrong. And most importantly I wasted the most precious things a startup has – engineering resources, time, and money.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">In hindsight I had no idea whether my potential customer was asking other companies to demo their product. I had no idea whether the buyer had a budget or even purchase authority. If they did, I had no idea of their timeline for a decision. I had no idea who were the other decision-makers in the company to integrate, deploy and scale the product. I didn’t even know what the success criteria for getting an order looked like. I didn’t check for warning signs of a deal that would go nowhere: whether the person requesting the demo was in a business unit or a tech evaluation/innovation group, whether they’d pay for a functional prototype they could use, etc. And for good measure, I never even considered asking the potential customer to pay for the demo and/or my costs.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">(My only excuse was that this was my first foray into enterprise sales.)</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Be Ruthless about the Opportunity Costs of Chasing Deals<br /> </strong>After that demoralizing experience I realized that every low probability demo got us further from success rather than closer. While a big company could afford to chase lots of deals I just had a small set of engineering resources. I became ruthless about the opportunity costs of chasing deals whose outcome I couldn’t predict.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">So we built rigor into our sales process.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">We built a sales road map of finding <u>first</u> product/market fit with the users and recommenders. However, we realized that there was a <u>second product/market fit</u> with the organization(s) that controlled the budget and the path to deployment and scale.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">For this second group of gatekeepers we came up with a cheap hack to validate that a demo wasn’t just a <a href="https://www.zendesk.com/blog/tire-kicker/">tire-kicking</a> exercise on their part. First, we asked them basic questions about the process: the success criteria, the decision timeline, did a budget exist, who had the purchase authority, what were the roles and approval processes of other organizations (IT, Compliance and Security, etc.) and what was the expected rate of scaling the product across their enterprise. (All the rookie questions I should have asked the first time around.)</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">That was just the starting point to decide if we wanted to invest our resources. We followed up our questions by <em>sending them a fully cancelable purchase order</em>. We listed all the features we had demoed that had gotten the users excited and threw in the features the technical evaluators had suggested. And we listed our price. In big letters the purchase order said, “FULLY CANCELABLE.” And then we sent it to the head of the group that asked us for the prototype.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">As you can imagine most of the time the response was – WTF?</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Figure Out Who’s A Serious Prospect<br /> </strong>That’s when the real learning started. It was more than OK with me if they said they weren’t ready to sign. Or they told me there were other groups who needed be involved. I was now learning things I never would have if I just showed up with a prototype. By asking the customer to sign a fully cancelable purchase order we excluded “least likely to close prospects”; those who weren’t ready to make a purchase decision, or those who already had a vendor selected but needed to go through “demo theater” to make the selection seem fair. But most importantly it started a conversation with serious prospects that informed us about the entire end-to-end approval process to get an order- who were the additional people who needed to say yes across the corporation – and what were their decision processes.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Our conversions of demos into orders went through the roof.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Finally, I was learning some of the basics of complex sales.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">—</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Justin stared at his uneaten pastry for a while and then looked up at me and said smiling, “I never knew you could do that. That’s given me a few ideas what we could do.” And just like that he was gone.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Lessons Learned</strong></p> <blockquote> <ul> <li>In complex sales there are <u>multiple</u> product/market fits – Users, Buyers, etc. — each with different criteria</li> <li>Don’t invest time and resources in building on-demand prototypes if you don’t know the path to a purchase order</li> <li>Use polite forcing functions, e.g. cancelable purchase orders, to discover who else needs to say “yes”</li> </ul> </blockquote> <iframe loading="lazy" width="100%" height="91" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F1801963893&width=false&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&visual=false&show_comments=false&color=false&show_user=false&show_reposts=false"></iframe> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-print"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-print sd-button" href="https://steveblank.com/2024/04/16/founders-need-to-be-ruthless-when-chasing-deals/" target="_blank" title="Click to print" ><span>Print</span></a></li><li class="share-email"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-email sd-button" href="mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Founders%20Need%20to%20Be%20Ruthless%20When%20Chasing%20Deals&body=https%3A%2F%2Fsteveblank.com%2F2024%2F04%2F16%2Ffounders-need-to-be-ruthless-when-chasing-deals%2F&share=email" target="_blank" title="Click to email a link to a friend" data-email-share-error-title="Do you have email set up?" data-email-share-error-text="If you're having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. 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href="https://steveblank.com/2024/04/16/founders-need-to-be-ruthless-when-chasing-deals/#comments">10 Comments »</a> </p> </div> </div> <div class="post-30553 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-customer-development" id="post-30553"> <h2><a href="https://steveblank.com/2024/02/13/apple-vision-pro-tech-in-the-search-of-a-market/" rel="bookmark">Apple Vision Pro – Tech in the Search of a Market</a></h2> <div class="postinfo"> Posted on <span class="postdate">February 13, 2024</span> by steve blank </div> <div class="entry"> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://fortune.com/2024/02/09/a-kodak-deja-vu-apples-vision-pro-killer-app-tim-cook-tech-retail/"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone" 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" alt="" width="65" height="19" /> </a>A version of this article previously appeared <a href="https://fortune.com/2024/02/09/a-kodak-deja-vu-apples-vision-pro-killer-app-tim-cook-tech-retail/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">in Fortune</a>.</p> <hr /> <p style="font-weight: 400;">If you haven’t been paying attention Apple has started shipping its <a href="https://www.apple.com/apple-vision-pro/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Apple Vision Pro</a>, its take on a headset that combines Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). The product is an amazing technical tour de force.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">But the product/market fit of this first iteration is a swing and a miss.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Vision-Pro-wearer-1.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="30559" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/02/13/apple-vision-pro-tech-in-the-search-of-a-market/vision-pro-wearer-2/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Vision-Pro-wearer-1.jpg?fit=586%2C667&ssl=1" data-orig-size="586,667" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Vision Pro wearer" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Vision-Pro-wearer-1.jpg?fit=264%2C300&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Vision-Pro-wearer-1.jpg?fit=468%2C533&ssl=1" class=" wp-image-30559 alignleft" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Vision-Pro-wearer-1.jpg?resize=147%2C167&ssl=1" alt="" width="147" height="167" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Vision-Pro-wearer-1.jpg?resize=264%2C300&ssl=1 264w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Vision-Pro-wearer-1.jpg?resize=132%2C150&ssl=1 132w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Vision-Pro-wearer-1.jpg?w=586&ssl=1 586w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 147px) 100vw, 147px" /></a><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Vision-pro-goggles.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="30560" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/02/13/apple-vision-pro-tech-in-the-search-of-a-market/vision-pro-goggles/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Vision-pro-goggles.jpg?fit=202%2C114&ssl=1" data-orig-size="202,114" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Vision pro goggles" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Vision-pro-goggles.jpg?fit=202%2C114&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Vision-pro-goggles.jpg?fit=202%2C114&ssl=1" class=" wp-image-30560 alignnone" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Vision-pro-goggles.jpg?resize=284%2C160&ssl=1" alt="" width="284" height="160" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Vision-pro-goggles.jpg?w=202&ssl=1 202w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Vision-pro-goggles.jpg?resize=150%2C85&ssl=1 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 284px) 100vw, 284px" /></a></p> <hr /> <p style="font-weight: 400;">I’ve watched other world class consumer product companies make the same mistakes:</p> <ol> <li>Come up with amazing hardware that creates entirely new capabilities</li> <li>Forecast demand based on volumes of their previous consumer products</li> <li>Confuse consumers by defining a new category without a frame of reference</li> <li>Discover the hardware doesn’t match their existing consumer customer base needs</li> <li>Work hard (read spend a lot of money) on trying to “push” sales to their existing customers</li> <li>Revenue is woefully short of forecast. Marketing and capital expenses (new factory, high R&D expense) were predicated on consumer-scale sales. The new product is burning a ton of cash</li> <li>Ignore/not understand adjacent niche markets that would have “pulled” the product out of their hands, if they had developed niche-specific demos and outreach</li> <li>Eventually pivot to the niche markets that are excited about the product</li> <li>The niche markets make great beachhead markets, but are too small to match the inflated forecasts and the built-in burn rates of consumer scale sales</li> <li>Either… <ul> <li>After multiple market pivots and changes in leadership, abandon the product</li> <li>Pivot and perserve</li> </ul> </li> </ol> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Déjà vu All Over Again<br /> </strong>I lived the equivalent of this when <a href="https://hbr.org/2016/07/kodaks-downfall-wasnt-about-technology" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kodak</a> (remember them?) launched a product in 1990 called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_CD" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PhotoCD</a>. Kodak wanted consumers to put their <em>film</em> photos on their home CDROM drive and then display them on their televisions. You dropped off your film at a film processor and instead of just getting physical prints of your pictures they would scan the film, and burn them onto a Compact Disc. You’d go home with a Compact Disc with your pictures on it.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Photo-CD-disk.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="30557" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/02/13/apple-vision-pro-tech-in-the-search-of-a-market/photo-cd-disk/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Photo-CD-disk.jpg?fit=400%2C300&ssl=1" data-orig-size="400,300" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Photo CD disk" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Photo-CD-disk.jpg?fit=300%2C225&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Photo-CD-disk.jpg?fit=400%2C300&ssl=1" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-30557" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Photo-CD-disk.jpg?resize=300%2C225&ssl=1" alt="" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Photo-CD-disk.jpg?resize=300%2C225&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Photo-CD-disk.jpg?resize=150%2C113&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Photo-CD-disk.jpg?w=400&ssl=1 400w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a>I got a preview of PhotoCD when I was the head of marketing at <a href="https://steveblank.com/category/supermac/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SuperMac</a>, a supplier of hardware and software for graphics professionals. The moment I saw the product I knew every one of my professional graphics customers (ad agencies, freelancers, photo studios, etc.) would want to use it. In fact, they would have paid a premium for it. I was floored when Kodak told me they were launching PhotoCD as a <em>consumer</em> product.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The problem was that in 1990 consumers did not have CDROM <em>drives</em> to display the pictures. At the time even most personal computers lacked them. But every graphics professional did own a CDROM drive but most didn’t own a high-resolution film scanner – and PhotoCD would have been perfect for them – and the perfect launch customer. To this day I remember being lectured by a senior Kodak executive, “Steve you don’t get it, we’re experts at selling to consumers. We’ll sell them the CDROM drives as well.” (The Kodak CDROM drives were the size of professional audio equipment and depending on the model, costing $600-$1000 in today’s dollars.)</p> <p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/photo-cd-player.webp?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="30558" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/02/13/apple-vision-pro-tech-in-the-search-of-a-market/photo-cd-player/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/photo-cd-player.webp?fit=1248%2C493&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1248,493" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="photo cd player" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/photo-cd-player.webp?fit=300%2C119&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/photo-cd-player.webp?fit=468%2C185&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-30558" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/photo-cd-player.webp?resize=468%2C185&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="185" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/photo-cd-player.webp?resize=1024%2C405&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/photo-cd-player.webp?resize=300%2C119&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/photo-cd-player.webp?resize=150%2C59&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/photo-cd-player.webp?resize=768%2C303&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/photo-cd-player.webp?w=1248&ssl=1 1248w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/photo-cd-player.webp?w=936&ssl=1 936w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">(And when consumer CDROM drives became available they couldn’t play the PhotoCD disks as they were encoded in a proprietary Kodak standard to lock you into their drives!) The result was that PhotoCD failed miserably as a consumer product. Subsequent pivots to professional graphics users (a segment another part of Kodak knew well) came too late, as low cost scanners and non-proprietary standards (JPEG) prevailed.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">So what’s the lesson for Apple?</p> <ol> <li>Apple is trying to push Vision Pro into their <em>existing</em> consumer customers</li> <li>All the demos and existing applications are oriented to their consumer customers</li> <li>Apple did not create demos for how the Vision Pro could be used in <em>new markets </em>where users would jump on buying a Vision Pro. For example, <ol> <li>There is proof of demand (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/@EverydayHomeRepairs/videos">here</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@MechanicSteve">here</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@1AAuto/videos">here</a>) of an adjacent mass market, helping millions of home owners repair things around the home</li> <li>There is proof of demand in industrial applications outside of the consumer space (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r1-IMMS73s">here</a>.) Every company that has complex machinery have been experimenting with AR for years. Imagine car repair with a Vision Pro AR tutorial. Or jet engine maintenance. Or the entire gamut of complex machinery.</li> </ol> </li> </ol> <p>All of these would have been great Vision Pro demos for training and repair. It’s hard to understand why Apple ignored these easy wins.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Getting it Right<br /> </strong>Apple’s entry into new markets by creating new product categories – iPods, iPads, iPhones – is unprecedented in the history of the modern corporation – $300 billion (75% of their revenue) is from non-computer hardware. In addition, they’ve created an entirely new $85+ billion subscription business model; the App Store, iTunes, Apple Care, Apple Pay, Apple Cash, Apple Arcade, Apple Music, Apple TV.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">It’s hard to remember, but the first version of these products launched with serious limitations that follow-on versions remedied. The first version of the iPhone only ran Apple software, it was a closed system without an app store, had no copy and paste, couldn’t record video, etc. The original Apple Watch was positioned as a fashion accessory. It wasn’t until later that Apple realized that the killer apps for the Watch were fitness and health. Fixing the technical flaws while finding the right markets for all these products took time and commitment.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The same will likely be true for the Vision Pro. Apple marketers will realize that adjacent spaces they are less familiar with will provide the first “got to have it” beachhead markets. Newer versions will ride the technology wave of lighter, and cheaper versions.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has made a personal bet on the Vision Pro. 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GjZs6Fq7pZwAiKvIuAAyf%2F581vwJgBQCRJQi5BKGfwkD87106RLbAK9du%2BZavIWcAIirxLgAcuHCBfb8ha0d8UDEA2EZkt8DoX0gmvassNquWrXKtXgLOQEQV4lxAeT379%2B6QYMGrPkTAGF4IeKBmHkgMGHutuxu3bq5Fm8hJwDiKjEugIDD1KlTBUBcVQbnwtDTWycAYg4gmzZtYhlgqVKl9Nu3b4MnKEapAIirtCQAcvz4cdb8edeJPy%2BXMHIJwzIi%2FyUMTPjOnTustjC6PXv2uFafMCcA4iowCYDQ6wC6SpUq7Dn0gweOBUAEQFgGFAQgMONGjRqx2o8bN861%2BoQ5ARBXgUkABFzGjh3Lmr8g8BAAKQQPKCJTlzDY159O%2Bf7yR48euZYRkOO%2BOdu1a9eA1sFFXJ7pAGT8%2BPEs%2BWrXrq1x49VGyjaAbN%2B%2BnSUj5vPq1auhIvbv35%2FFq3nz5qF8nMqkALJ3717WePy26hyLB5JhD2TXrl3sCTp8%2BLBjF8X%2B8U4JN0bD8OHDi7VPV5AUQHbv3s2WD48ObaRsA8ixY8fYMu7YsSNUxLp167J4pQNsP%2FOkAPLhwwdWjBAHMPz%2FAiAZBpATJ06wDAYTA6NJd5besGEDmw%2BC%2FnBTUgDB250UMoE1tqVLl3KHFUqXbQC5cuUKSz7MYfv27fX3798Dx29yMsGlBSclBRD0kSRGyN8KINbjgdAljFq3bh3ZgN1ElyWqcePGbKYTJkxQBBaqYsWKRW127typ6JGbondQisrCMoiBgVgYnGQaDySIZ5s2bRRFGwuq%2BqPMJE7JHw19B9mOB0Jn6VQMFPICfSMJPhw9enQqRgZF9ioiQAwQzO379%2B%2BLysIyBLZq2bJlYSSpOtN4IBiDP23dulUREPiLWcdoZzseyNChQ1WfPn1Y%2FfuJpk%2Bf7i8KPuagM2ioNeuXqXsgGEO7du1YY3DGivsFw4YN07i%2F0Lp1a6O24HH%2F%2Fn10y0pJPRB0MmvWLNYYEYcCoe2Spmx7IBhv7969WTI6c1ijRg1NgXE0LdiUV%2BKUc%2F%2Bx05eTbHggz58%2Fjx0jJBMeCFdHQXQcnYHmr4kHgsEuWbLEyPiCFMMtA1iZJBsAgns33PFF3SPgjD0XAEJeHVtGri7S0eH9IewU5SQbAIJ%2BcOM93XjCygVACj2UTHogDx8%2BTHSjKmwC%2FXUIAGySbAAIueUam8X8Ywk6HjNmjMnwAmlzASCvX7%2FWVatWZckYJLdJGaLYcZMtAIkbI0QAJAsAAmOYPXt2xo0Pj%2F5MI4DZABDIx41yhYjfpmMEf2%2FKBYCgf7zTYwIEcWjxfopJCEhbAGKyKdArlwBIlgAEn2zgPsLzThA3jychR48e9a4zVt4WgCxatIi9uM6ePcsaWzqiXAHI58%2BfNQXUZsvJnTsvHZ7UmCRbAII%2BW7VqZSybAEiWAAQTdP78%2BYxdyixevBhdGCdbAHLq1Cm28c2bN894nN4GuQIQjOHGjRu6cuXKbFm94BCVpycIXjFZeZsAwo1165VDACSLAAKLwBnGZlRsTCY9NmTfdPNbpS0A%2Bfr1K3ujW9u2bf3DMDrOJYBgoPD0ypQpYxVEEL0%2BzqWdTQCJEyNEACTLAAIDPHLkiLWzGG7%2B%2Fvz5E2xjJVsAgs6xCLxnp7B81Lb9MGFyDSAY25kzZ3StWrXY8obpYuLEiRovtsVJNgEkTowQAZAcAAgMBa4wd%2FEGGR99pEdjG3nSxB0DZ2u1yXs%2F9LGm2EP%2FLwAIBv%2FgwQNNH0CKDSIIyGT61MyvNJsAAt7Tpk0zkkcAJEcAgskC4u%2Fbt0%2Fj%2BylBIBFUhkeJ2BKOdxhsJJsAcvnyZbYcQ4YMiT38%2FwqAOALgXZkOHTqwZa9UqZKeO3eulRgptgHENEbI3wog7K3s2ErOSXRjTNHi5JBmhOb69evq0KFDilxj9fTpU0W7AxXdV1D16tVLfb6PNogpWnSKPrCt6Prb2hhevHih6N2NSH60aCM%2FTUgLSj1%2B%2FDiSFwho30jszxKiD%2FQVlWihKu928ij6pPX4rCV9xkLRDWX15MkTRe8JKXpyo%2BjpW0pW2lWcmkN8thHb8W0kbK%2BHrXASPpvqfUUiqA0%2BWQr74ybwC%2Fscq8OHTpYpnTjHmfqn8BIs1mwAYXETItGAaCCvNCAAklfTLcKKBuxqQADErj6Fm2ggrzQgAJJX0y3CigbsakAAxK4%2BhZtoIK80IACSV9MtwooG7GpAAMSuPoWbaCCvNCAAklfTLcKKBuxqQADErj6Fm2ggrzQgAJJX0y3CigbsauAfmPkmH4vmWb4AAAAASUVORK5CYII%3D&description=Apple%20Vision%20Pro%20%E2%80%93%20Tech%20in%20the%20Search%20of%20a%20Market" 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Development</a> | <a href="https://steveblank.com/2024/02/13/apple-vision-pro-tech-in-the-search-of-a-market/#comments">15 Comments »</a> </p> </div> </div> <div class="post-29869 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-customer-development" id="post-29869"> <h2><a href="https://steveblank.com/2023/09/05/profound-beliefs/" rel="bookmark">Profound Beliefs</a></h2> <div class="postinfo"> Posted on <span class="postdate">September 5, 2023</span> by steve blank </div> <div class="entry"> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://eiexchange.com"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29564" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/02/14/startups-that-have-employees-in-offices-grow-3-%c2%bd-times-faster/eix-logo/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/EIX-logo.jpg?fit=466%2C196&ssl=1" data-orig-size="466,196" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="EIX logo" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/EIX-logo.jpg?fit=300%2C126&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/EIX-logo.jpg?fit=466%2C196&ssl=1" class="alignleft wp-image-29564" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/EIX-logo.jpg?resize=100%2C42&ssl=1" alt="" width="100" height="42" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/EIX-logo.jpg?resize=150%2C63&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/EIX-logo.jpg?resize=300%2C126&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/EIX-logo.jpg?w=466&ssl=1 466w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px" /></a>This post previously <a href="https://eiexchange.com/content/startups-need-both-profound-beliefs-and-customer-input" target="_blank" rel="noopener">appeared in EIX</a>.</p> <p>In the early stages of a startup your hypotheses about all the parts of your <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoAOzMTLP5s">business model</a> are your profound beliefs. Think of profound beliefs as “strong opinions loosely held.”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">You can’t be an effective founder or in the C-suite of a startup if you don’t hold any.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Here’s how I learned why they were critical to successful customer development.</p> <hr /> <p style="font-weight: 400;">I was an aggressive, young and a very tactical VP of marketing at <a href="http://steveblank.com/category/ardent/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ardent</a>, a supercomputer company – who really hadn’t a clue about the relationship between profound beliefs, customer discovery and strategy.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">One day the CEO called me into his office and asked, “Steve I’ve been thinking about this as our strategy going forward. What do you think?” And he proceeded to lay out a fairly complex and innovative sales and marketing strategy for our next 18 months. “Yeah, that sounds great,” I said. He nodded and then offered up, “Well what do you think of this other strategy?” I listened intently as he spun an equally complex alternative strategy. “Can you pull both of these off?” he asked looking right at me. By the angelic look on his face I should have known that I was being set up. I replied naively, “Sure, I’ll get right on it.”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Ambushed<br /> </strong>Decades later I still remember what happened next. All of a sudden the air temperature in the room dropped by about 40 degrees. Out of nowhere the CEO started screaming at me, “You stupid x?!x. <em>These strategies are mutually exclusive</em>. Executing both of them would put us out of business. You don’t have a clue about what the purpose of marketing is because all you are doing is <em>giving engineering a list of feature requests and executing a series of tasks like they’re like a big To Do list</em>. Without understanding why you’re doing them, you’re dangerous as the VP of Marketing, in fact you’re just a glorified head of marketing communications. <u>You have no profound beliefs.”</u></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">I left in a daze, angry and confused. There was no doubt my boss was a jerk, but I didn’t understand the point. I was a great marketer. I was getting feedback from customers, and I’d pass on every list of what customers wanted to engineering and tell them that’s the features our customers needed. I could implement any marketing plan handed to me regardless of how complex. In fact I was implementing three different ones. Oh…hmm… perhaps I was missing something.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">I was executing a lot of marketing “things” but why was I doing them? The CEO was right. I had approached my activities as simply a task-list to get through. With my tail between my legs I was left to ponder: What was the function of marketing in a startup? And more importantly, what was a profound belief and why was it important?</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Hypotheses about Your Business Model = Your Profound Beliefs Loosely Held<br /> </strong><em>Your hypotheses about all the parts of your business model are your profound beliefs. Think of them as strong opinions loosely held</em>. You can’t be an effective founder or in the C-suite if you don’t have any.<a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Bus-Model.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29882" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/09/05/profound-beliefs/bus-model-2/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Bus-Model.jpg?fit=686%2C480&ssl=1" data-orig-size="686,480" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Bus Model" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Bus-Model.jpg?fit=300%2C210&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Bus-Model.jpg?fit=468%2C327&ssl=1" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-29882" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Bus-Model.jpg?resize=300%2C210&ssl=1" alt="" width="300" height="210" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Bus-Model.jpg?resize=300%2C210&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Bus-Model.jpg?resize=150%2C105&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Bus-Model.jpg?w=686&ssl=1 686w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The whole role of customer discovery and validation outside your building <em>is to inform your profound beliefs</em>. By inform I mean use the evidence you gather outside the building to either validate your beliefs/hypotheses, invalidate or modify them. Specifically, what beliefs and hypotheses? Start with those around product/market fit – who are your customers and what features do they want? Who are the payers? Then march through the rest of the business model. What price will they pay? What role do regulators pay? Etc. The best validation you can get is an order. (BTW, if you’re creating a new market, it’s even OK to ignore customer feedback but you have to be able to articulate why.)</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The reality of a startup is that that on day one most of your beliefs/hypotheses are likely wrong. However, you will be informed by those experiments outside the building, and data from potential customers, partners, regulators, et al will modify your vision over time.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">It’s helpful to diagram the consequences between hypotheses/ beliefs and customer discovery. <span style="font-weight: 400;">(See the diagram) </span><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Profound-1.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29885" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/09/05/profound-beliefs/profound-3/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Profound-1.jpg?fit=1863%2C1322&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1863,1322" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Profound" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Profound-1.jpg?fit=300%2C213&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Profound-1.jpg?fit=468%2C332&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-29885" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Profound-1.jpg?resize=300%2C213&ssl=1" alt="" width="300" height="213" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Profound-1.jpg?resize=300%2C213&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Profound-1.jpg?resize=1024%2C727&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Profound-1.jpg?resize=150%2C106&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Profound-1.jpg?resize=768%2C545&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Profound-1.jpg?resize=1536%2C1090&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Profound-1.jpg?w=1863&ssl=1 1863w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Profound-1.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Profound-1.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">If <em>you have</em> <em>no beliefs and haven’t gotten out of the building</em> to gather evidence, then your role inside a new venture is neutral. You act as a tactical implementer as you add no insight/or value to product development.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">If you’ve gotten out of the building to gather evidence but <em>have no profound beliefs to guide your inquiries</em>, then your role inside a new venture is negative. You’ll collect a laundry-list of customer feature requests and deliver them to product development, without any insight. This is essentially a denial of service attack on engineering’s time. (I was mostly operating in this box when I got chewed out by our CEO.)</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The biggest drag on a startup is those who have <em>strong beliefs</em> <em>but</em> <em>haven’t</em> <em>gotten out of the building</em> to gather evidence. Meetings become opinion contests and those with the loudest voices (or worse “I’m the CEO and my opinion matters more than your facts”) dominate planning and strategy. (They may be right, but Twitter/X is an example where Elon is in the box on the bottom right of the diagram. )</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The winning combination is <em>strong beliefs</em> <em>that are validated or modified by evidence gathered outside the building</em>. These are “strong opinions loosely held.”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Strategy is Not a To Do List, It <em>Drives</em> a To Do List<br /> </strong>It took me awhile, but I began to realize that the <em>strategic</em> part of my job was to recognize that (in today’s jargon) we were still searching for a scalable and repeatable business model. Therefore my job was to:</p> <ul> <li>Articulate the founding team’s strong beliefs and hypotheses about our business model</li> <li>Do an internal check-in to see if a) the founders were aligned and b) if I agreed with them</li> <li>Get out of the building and test our strong beliefs and hypotheses about who were potential customers, what problems they had and what their needs were</li> <li>Test product development’s/engineering’s beliefs about customer needs with customer feedback</li> <li>When we found product/market fit, marketing’s job was to put together a strategy/plan for marketing and sales. That should be easy. If we did enough discovery customers would have told us what features were important to them, how we compare to competitors, how we should set prices, and how to best sell to them</li> </ul> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Once I understood the strategy, the tactical marketing To Do list (website, branding, pr, tradeshows, white papers, data sheets) became clear. It allowed me to prioritize what I did, when I did it and instantly understand what would be mutually exclusive.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Lessons Learned</strong></p> <blockquote> <ul> <li>Profound beliefs are your hypotheses about all the parts of your business model <ul> <li>No profound beliefs but lots of customer discovery ends up as a feature list collection which is detrimental to product development</li> <li>Profound beliefs but no customer discovery ends up as opinion contests and those with the loudest voices dominate</li> </ul> </li> <li>The winning combination is <em>strong beliefs</em> <em>that are validated or modified by evidence gathered outside the building</em>These are “strong opinions loosely held.”</li> </ul> </blockquote> <iframe loading="lazy" width="100%" height="91" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F1611779052&width=false&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&visual=false&show_comments=false&color=false&show_user=false&show_reposts=false"></iframe> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-print"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-print sd-button" href="https://steveblank.com/2023/09/05/profound-beliefs/" target="_blank" title="Click to print" ><span>Print</span></a></li><li class="share-email"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-email sd-button" href="mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Profound%20Beliefs&body=https%3A%2F%2Fsteveblank.com%2F2023%2F09%2F05%2Fprofound-beliefs%2F&share=email" target="_blank" title="Click to email a link to a friend" data-email-share-error-title="Do you have email set up?" data-email-share-error-text="If you're having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. 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data-src='https://widgets.wp.com/likes/?ver=14.4-a.3#blog_id=6599589&post_id=29869&origin=steveblank.com&obj_id=6599589-29869-67b32e47cd9be&n=1' data-name='like-post-frame-6599589-29869-67b32e47cd9be' data-title='Like or Reblog'><h3 class="sd-title">Like this:</h3><div class='likes-widget-placeholder post-likes-widget-placeholder' style='height: 55px;'><span class='button'><span>Like</span></span> <span class="loading">Loading...</span></div><span class='sd-text-color'></span><a class='sd-link-color'></a></div> <p class="postinfo"> Filed under: <a href="https://steveblank.com/category/customer-development/" rel="category tag">Customer Development</a> | <a href="https://steveblank.com/2023/09/05/profound-beliefs/#comments">6 Comments »</a> </p> </div> </div> <div class="post-29765 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-customer-development category-lean-launchpad category-teaching" id="post-29765"> <h2><a href="https://steveblank.com/2023/07/25/lean-meets-wicked-problems/" rel="bookmark">Lean Meets Wicked Problems</a></h2> <div class="postinfo"> Posted on <span class="postdate">July 25, 2023</span> by steve blank </div> <div class="entry"> <p><a href="https://poetsandquants.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="25513" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2019/12/03/getting-schooled-lessons-from-an-adjuncts/poets-and-quants-logo/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/poets-and-quants-logo.png?fit=1438%2C248&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1438,248" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Poets and quants logo" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/poets-and-quants-logo.png?fit=300%2C52&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/poets-and-quants-logo.png?fit=468%2C81&ssl=1" class="wp-image-25513 alignleft" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/poets-and-quants-logo.png?resize=163%2C28&ssl=1" alt="" width="163" height="28" /></a>This post <a href="https://poetsandquants.com/2023/07/17/steve-blank-lean-meets-wicked-problems/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">previously appeared</a> in Poets & Quants.</p> <p>I just spent a month and a half at Imperial College London co-teaching a “Wicked” Entrepreneurship class. In this case Wicked doesn’t mean morally evil, but refers to really complex problems, ones with multiple moving parts, where the solution isn’t obvious. (Understanding and solving homelessness, disinformation, climate change mitigation or an insurgency are examples of wicked problems. <a href="https://hbr.org/2008/05/strategy-as-a-wicked-problem">Co</a><a href="https://hbr.org/2008/05/strategy-as-a-wicked-problem">mpanies also face Wicked problems</a>. In contrast, designing AI-driven enterprise software or building dating apps are comparatively simple problems.)</p> <hr /> <p style="font-weight: 400;">I’ve known <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-cristobal-garcia-herrera-a81174?originalSubdomain=uk">Professor Cristobal Garcia</a> since 2010 when he hosted my first visit to Catholic University in Santiago of Chile and to southern Patagonia. Now at Imperial College Business School and Co-Founder of the <a href="https://www.wickedacceleration.org/">Wicked Acceleration Labs</a>, Cristobal and I wondered if we could combine the tenets of Lean (get out of the building, build MVPs, run experiments, move with speed and urgency) with the expanded toolset developed by researchers who work on Wicked problems and Systems’ Thinking.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Our goal was to see if we could get students to <u>stop admiring problems and work</u><u> rapidly on solving them</u>. As Wicked and Lean seem to be mutually exclusive, this was a pretty audacious undertaking.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">This five-week class was going to be our MVP.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Here’s what happened.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Finding The Problems<br /> </strong>Professor Garcia scoured the world to find eight Wicked/complex problems for students to work on. He presented to organizations in the Netherlands, Chile, Spain, the UK (Ministry of Defense and the BBC), and aerospace companies. The end result was a truly ambitious, unique, and international set of curated Wicked problems.</p> <ul> <li>Increasing security and prosperity amid the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapuche_conflict">Mapuche conflict</a> in Araucania region of Chile</li> <li>Enabling and accelerating a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_hydrogen">Green Hydrogen</a> economy</li> <li>Turning the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_Country_(autonomous_community)">Basque Country in Spain</a> into an AI hub</li> <li>Solving Disinformation/Information Pollution for the BBC</li> <li>Creating <a href="https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/POST-PN-0651/POST-PN-0651.pdf">Blue Carbon</a> projects for the UK Ministry of Defense</li> <li>Improving patient outcomes for Ukrainian battlefield injuries</li> <li>Imagining the future of a low-earth-orbit space economy</li> <li>Creating a modular architecture for future UK defense ships</li> </ul> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Recruiting the Students<br /> </strong>With the problems in hand, we set about recruiting students from both <a href="https://www.imperial.ac.uk/business-school/">Imperial College’s business school</a> and the <a href="https://www.rca.ac.uk/">Royal College of Art</a>’s design and engineering programs.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">We held an info session explaining the problems and the unique parts of the class. We were going to share with them a “Swiss Army Knife” of traditional tools to understand Wicked/Complex problems, but they were not going to research these problems in the library. Instead, using the elements of Lean methodology, they were going to get out of the building and observe the problems first-hand. And instead of passively observing them, they were going to build and test MVPs. All in six weeks.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">50 students signed up to work on the eight problems with different degrees of “wickedness”.</p> <div id="attachment_29803" style="width: 478px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Imperial-wicked-2023-class.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-29803" data-attachment-id="29803" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/07/25/lean-meets-wicked-problems/imperial-wicked-2023-class/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Imperial-wicked-2023-class.jpg?fit=3274%2C1749&ssl=1" data-orig-size="3274,1749" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Imperial wicked 2023 class" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Imperial Wicked Problems and Systems Thinking – 2023 Class</p> " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Imperial-wicked-2023-class.jpg?fit=300%2C160&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Imperial-wicked-2023-class.jpg?fit=468%2C250&ssl=1" class="wp-image-29803 size-large" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Imperial-wicked-2023-class.jpg?resize=468%2C250&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="250" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Imperial-wicked-2023-class.jpg?resize=1024%2C547&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Imperial-wicked-2023-class.jpg?resize=300%2C160&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Imperial-wicked-2023-class.jpg?resize=150%2C80&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Imperial-wicked-2023-class.jpg?resize=768%2C410&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Imperial-wicked-2023-class.jpg?resize=1536%2C821&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Imperial-wicked-2023-class.jpg?resize=2048%2C1094&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Imperial-wicked-2023-class.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Imperial-wicked-2023-class.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-29803" class="wp-caption-text">Imperial Wicked Problems and Systems Thinking – 2023 Class</p></div> <p><b>The Class<br /> </b><span style="font-weight: 400;">The pedagogy of the class (our teaching methods and the learning activities) were similar to all the Lean/I-Corps and <a href="https://h4d.stanford.edu" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hacking for Defense</a> classes we’ve previously taught. This meant the class was </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">team-based, Lean-driven (hypothesis testing/business model/customer development/agile engineering) and </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">experiential – where the students, rather than being presented with all of the essential information, must discover that information </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">rapidly </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">for themselves.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The teams were going to get out of the building and talk to 10 stakeholder a week. Then weekly each team will present </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">1) here’s what we thought, 2) here’s what we did, 3) here’s what we learned, 4) here’s what we’re going to do during this week.</span></p> <p><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">More Tools<br /> </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">The key difference between this class and previous Lean/I-Corps and Hacking for Defense classes was that Wicked problems required more than just a business model or mission model to grasp the problem and map the solution. Here, to get a handle on the complexity of their problem the students needed a </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">suite</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> of tools – Stakeholder Maps, Systems Maps, Assumptions Mapping, Experimentation Menus, Unintended Consequences Map, and finally Dr. Garcia’s derivative of the Alexander Osterwalder’s <a href="https://www.strategyzer.com/canvas">Business Model Canvas</a> – the </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wicked Canvas</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> – which added the concept of unintended consequences and the “sub-problems” according to the different stakeholders’ perspectives to the traditional canvas.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">During the class the teaching team offered explanations of each tool, but the teams got a firmer grasp on Wicked tools from a guest lecture by </span><a href="https://design.cmu.edu/people/faculty/terry-irwin"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Professor Terry Irwin</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, Director of the </span><a href="https://transitiondesigninstitute.net/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Transition Design Institute</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> at Carnegie Mellon (see her presentation </span><a href="https://youtu.be/WzRGFiFZwq0?t=7"><span style="font-weight: 400;">here</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.) Throughout the class teams had the flexibility to select the tools they felt appropriate to rapidly gain an holistic understanding and yet to develop a minimum viable product to address and experiment with each of the wicked problems.</span></p> <h3><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Class Flow<br /> </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Week 1 </span></h3> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">What is a simple idea? What are big ideas and Impact Hypotheses? </span> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="2"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Characteristics of each. Rewards, CEO, team, complexity, end point, etc. </span></li> </ul> </li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">What is unique about Wicked Problems?</span> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="2"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Beyond TAM and SAM (“back of the napkin”) for Wicked Problems</span></li> </ul> </li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">You need Big Ideas to tackle Wicked Problems: but who does it?</span> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"> Startups vs. Large Companies vs. Governments</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Innovation at Speed for Horizon 1, 2 and 3 (Managing the Portfolio across Horizons)</span></li> </ul> </li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">What is Systems Thinking?</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">How to map stakeholders and systems’ dynamics?</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Customer & Stakeholder Discovery: getting outside the building, city and country: why and how? </span></li> </ul> <p><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mapping the Problem(s), Stakeholders and Systems – Wicked Tools</span></i><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-1-Stakeholders-and-Systems.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29770" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/07/25/lean-meets-wicked-problems/figure-1-stakeholders-and-systems/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-1-Stakeholders-and-Systems.jpg?fit=3029%2C1320&ssl=1" data-orig-size="3029,1320" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Figure 1 Stakeholders and Systems" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-1-Stakeholders-and-Systems.jpg?fit=300%2C131&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-1-Stakeholders-and-Systems.jpg?fit=468%2C204&ssl=1" class="size-large wp-image-29770 aligncenter" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-1-Stakeholders-and-Systems.jpg?resize=468%2C204&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="204" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-1-Stakeholders-and-Systems.jpg?resize=1024%2C446&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-1-Stakeholders-and-Systems.jpg?resize=300%2C131&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-1-Stakeholders-and-Systems.jpg?resize=150%2C65&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-1-Stakeholders-and-Systems.jpg?resize=768%2C335&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-1-Stakeholders-and-Systems.jpg?resize=1536%2C669&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-1-Stakeholders-and-Systems.jpg?resize=2048%2C892&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-1-Stakeholders-and-Systems.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-1-Stakeholders-and-Systems.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Week 2</span></h3> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Teams present for 6 min and receive 4 mins feedback</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Wicked Swiss Army Knife for the week: Mapping Assumptions Matrix, unintended consequences and how to run and design experiments</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Prof Erkko Autio (ICBS and Wicked Labs) on AI Ecosystems and Prof Peter Palensky (TU Delft) on Smart Grids, Decarbornization and Green Hydrogen</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Lecture on Minimal Viable Products (MVPs) and Experiments</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Homework: getting outside the building & the country to run experiments</span></li> </ul> <p><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Assumption Mapping and Experimentation Type – Wicked Tools</span></i><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-2-Assumpitons-Experiments-Consenquences.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29772" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/07/25/lean-meets-wicked-problems/figure-2-assumpitons-experiments-consenquences/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-2-Assumpitons-Experiments-Consenquences.jpg?fit=2368%2C1688&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2368,1688" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Figure 2 Assumpitons, Experiments Consenquences" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-2-Assumpitons-Experiments-Consenquences.jpg?fit=300%2C214&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-2-Assumpitons-Experiments-Consenquences.jpg?fit=468%2C334&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-29772" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-2-Assumpitons-Experiments-Consenquences.jpg?resize=468%2C334&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="334" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-2-Assumpitons-Experiments-Consenquences.jpg?resize=1024%2C730&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-2-Assumpitons-Experiments-Consenquences.jpg?resize=300%2C214&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-2-Assumpitons-Experiments-Consenquences.jpg?resize=150%2C107&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-2-Assumpitons-Experiments-Consenquences.jpg?resize=768%2C547&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-2-Assumpitons-Experiments-Consenquences.jpg?resize=1536%2C1095&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-2-Assumpitons-Experiments-Consenquences.jpg?resize=2048%2C1460&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-2-Assumpitons-Experiments-Consenquences.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-2-Assumpitons-Experiments-Consenquences.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Week 3</span></h3> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Teams present in 6 min and receive 4 mins feedback</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Wicked Swiss Army Knife for the week: from problem to solution via “How Might We…” Builder and further initial solution experimentation</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">On Canvases: What, Why and How </span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Wicked Canvas </span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Next Steps and Homework: continue running experiments with MVPs and start validating your business/mission/wicked canvas</span></li> </ul> <p><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Wicked Canvas – Wicked Tools</span></i></p> <h3><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figue-4-Wicked-Canvas.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29777" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/07/25/lean-meets-wicked-problems/figue-4-wicked-canvas/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figue-4-Wicked-Canvas.jpg?fit=2151%2C1647&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2151,1647" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Figue 4 Wicked Canvas" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figue-4-Wicked-Canvas.jpg?fit=300%2C230&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figue-4-Wicked-Canvas.jpg?fit=468%2C358&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-29777" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figue-4-Wicked-Canvas.jpg?resize=468%2C358&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="358" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figue-4-Wicked-Canvas.jpg?resize=1024%2C784&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figue-4-Wicked-Canvas.jpg?resize=300%2C230&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figue-4-Wicked-Canvas.jpg?resize=150%2C115&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figue-4-Wicked-Canvas.jpg?resize=768%2C588&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figue-4-Wicked-Canvas.jpg?resize=1536%2C1176&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figue-4-Wicked-Canvas.jpg?resize=2048%2C1568&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figue-4-Wicked-Canvas.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figue-4-Wicked-Canvas.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></span></h3> <p><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Experimentation Design and How We Might… – Wicked Tools</span></i><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-3-Experiment-Design-How-we-Might.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29775" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/07/25/lean-meets-wicked-problems/figure-3-experiment-design-how-we-might/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-3-Experiment-Design-How-we-Might.jpg?fit=3227%2C1239&ssl=1" data-orig-size="3227,1239" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Figure 3 Experiment Design, How we Might" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-3-Experiment-Design-How-we-Might.jpg?fit=300%2C115&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-3-Experiment-Design-How-we-Might.jpg?fit=468%2C180&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-29775" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-3-Experiment-Design-How-we-Might.jpg?resize=468%2C180&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="180" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-3-Experiment-Design-How-we-Might.jpg?resize=1024%2C393&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-3-Experiment-Design-How-we-Might.jpg?resize=300%2C115&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-3-Experiment-Design-How-we-Might.jpg?resize=150%2C58&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-3-Experiment-Design-How-we-Might.jpg?resize=768%2C295&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-3-Experiment-Design-How-we-Might.jpg?resize=1536%2C590&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-3-Experiment-Design-How-we-Might.jpg?resize=2048%2C786&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-3-Experiment-Design-How-we-Might.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figure-3-Experiment-Design-How-we-Might.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Week 4</span></h3> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Teams present in 6 min and receive 5 mins feedback</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wicked Business Models – validating all building blocks</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Geography of Innovation – </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">the milieu, creative cities & prosperous regions</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">How World War II and the UK Started Silicon Valley</span></li> <li aria-level="1">The Wicked Swiss Tool- <span style="font-weight: 400;">maps for acupuncture in the territory</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Storytelling & Pitching </span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Homework: Validated MVP & Lessons learned</span></li> </ul> <p><em>Acupuncture Map for Regional System Intervention <i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> – Wicked Tools</span></i></em><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Acupuncture-map.jpg?ssl=1"><br /> <img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29816" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/07/25/lean-meets-wicked-problems/acupuncture-map/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Acupuncture-map.jpg?fit=1300%2C508&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1300,508" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Acupuncture map" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Acupuncture-map.jpg?fit=300%2C117&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Acupuncture-map.jpg?fit=468%2C183&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-29816" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Acupuncture-map.jpg?resize=468%2C183&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="183" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Acupuncture-map.jpg?resize=1024%2C400&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Acupuncture-map.jpg?resize=300%2C117&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Acupuncture-map.jpg?resize=150%2C59&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Acupuncture-map.jpg?resize=768%2C300&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Acupuncture-map.jpg?w=1300&ssl=1 1300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Acupuncture-map.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <h3><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Figue-4-Wicked-Canvas.jpg"><br /> </a>Week 5</span></h3> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Teams presented their Final Lessons Learned journey – </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Validated MVP, Insights & Hindsight </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">(see the presentations at the end of the post.)</span> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="2"><span style="font-weight: 400;">What did we understand about the problem on day 1?</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="2"><span style="font-weight: 400;">What do we now understand?</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="2"><span style="font-weight: 400;">How did we get here?</span></li> <li aria-level="2">What solutions would we propose now?</li> <li aria-level="2">What did we learn?</li> <li aria-level="2"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Reflections on the Wicked Tools</span></li> </ul> </li> </ul> <p><b>Results<br /> </b><span style="font-weight: 400;">To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect. We pushed the students way past what they have done in other classes. In spite of what we said in the info session and syllabus, many students were in shock when they realized that they couldn’t take the class by just showing up, and heard in no uncertain terms that no stakeholder/customer interviews in week 1 was unacceptable.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Yet, everyone got the message pretty quickly. The team working on the</span> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapuche_conflict"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mapuche conflict</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> in the </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Araucania region of Chile, flew to Chile from London, interviewed multiple stakeholders and were back in time for next week’s class. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">The team working to turn the </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_Country_(autonomous_community)"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Basque Country in Spain</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> into an AI hub</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> did the same – they flew to Bilbao and interviewed several stakeholders. The team working on the Green Hydrogen got connected to the Rotterdam ecosystem and key stakeholders in the Port, energy incumbents, VCs and Tech Universities. The team working on Ukraine did not fly there for obvious reasons. The rest of the teams spread out across the UK – all of them furiously mapping stakeholders, assumptions, systems, etc., while proposing minimal viable solutions. By the end of the class it was a whirlwind of activity as students not only presented their progress but saw that of their peers. No one wanted to be left behind. They all moved with speed and alacrity.</span></p> <h3><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Lessons Learned</strong></span></h3> <blockquote> <ul> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">Our conclusion? While this class is not a substitute for a years-long deep analysis of Wicked/complex problems it gave students:</span> <ul> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">a practical hands-on introduction to tools to map, sense, understand and potentially solve Wicked Problems</span></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">the confidence and tools to stop admiring problems and work on solving them</span></li> </ul> </li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">I think we’ll teach it again.</span></li> </ul> </blockquote> <iframe loading="lazy" width="100%" height="92" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F1578345555&width=false&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&visual=false&show_comments=false&color=false&show_user=false&show_reposts=false"></iframe> <h2><b>Team final presentations<br /> </b></h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The team’s final lessons learned presentations were pretty extraordinary, only matched by their post-class comments. Take a look below.</span></p> <h3><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oshXruxYZe3ct4-w7oSAgPygXgiYbYBN/view?usp=sharing"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Team Wicked Araucania</span></i></a></h3> <p><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oshXruxYZe3ct4-w7oSAgPygXgiYbYBN/view"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29781" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/07/25/lean-meets-wicked-problems/team-2-title/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-2-title.jpg?fit=2669%2C1505&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2669,1505" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Team 2 title" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-2-title.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-2-title.jpg?fit=468%2C264&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-29781 size-medium" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-2-title.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-2-title.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-2-title.jpg?resize=1024%2C577&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-2-title.jpg?resize=150%2C85&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-2-title.jpg?resize=768%2C433&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-2-title.jpg?resize=1536%2C866&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-2-title.jpg?resize=2048%2C1155&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-2-title.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-2-title.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Click </span><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oshXruxYZe3ct4-w7oSAgPygXgiYbYBN/view?usp=sharing"><span style="font-weight: 400;">here</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> if you can’t see the </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Araucania</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> presentation.</span></p> <h3><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JzKsp13Xule5oddR8Gzapa4qMTsxO7lR/view?usp=sharing"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Team Accelerate Basque</span></i></a></h3> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JzKsp13Xule5oddR8Gzapa4qMTsxO7lR/view"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29784" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/07/25/lean-meets-wicked-problems/team-3-title/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-3-title.jpg?fit=2666%2C1502&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2666,1502" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Team 3 title" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-3-title.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-3-title.jpg?fit=468%2C264&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-29784 size-medium" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-3-title.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-3-title.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-3-title.jpg?resize=1024%2C577&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-3-title.jpg?resize=150%2C85&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-3-title.jpg?resize=768%2C433&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-3-title.jpg?resize=1536%2C865&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-3-title.jpg?resize=2048%2C1154&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-3-title.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-3-title.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a>Click </span><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JzKsp13Xule5oddR8Gzapa4qMTsxO7lR/view?usp=sharing"><span style="font-weight: 400;">here</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> if you can’t see the </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Accelerate Basque</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> presentation.</span></p> <h3><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c9nlyj_BLRW1mG-FL_0IVruQ2uUEyFZs/view"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Team Green Hydrogen</span></i></a><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c9nlyj_BLRW1mG-FL_0IVruQ2uUEyFZs/view"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29790" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/07/25/lean-meets-wicked-problems/green-title/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Green-title.jpg?fit=3550%2C1861&ssl=1" data-orig-size="3550,1861" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Green title" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Green-title.jpg?fit=300%2C157&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Green-title.jpg?fit=468%2C245&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-29790 size-medium" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Green-title.jpg?resize=300%2C157&ssl=1" alt="" width="300" height="157" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Green-title.jpg?resize=300%2C157&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Green-title.jpg?resize=1024%2C537&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Green-title.jpg?resize=150%2C79&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Green-title.jpg?resize=768%2C403&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Green-title.jpg?resize=1536%2C805&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Green-title.jpg?resize=2048%2C1074&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Green-title.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Green-title.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></h3> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Click </span><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c9nlyj_BLRW1mG-FL_0IVruQ2uUEyFZs/view?usp=sharing"><span style="font-weight: 400;">here</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> if you can’t see the </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Green Hydrogen</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> presentation.</span></p> <h3><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GbDDEeLbG2oxaSgLeZqp9h8sHOECMGe5/view?usp=sharing"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Team </span></i><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Into The Blue</span></i></a></h3> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GbDDEeLbG2oxaSgLeZqp9h8sHOECMGe5/view"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29792" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/07/25/lean-meets-wicked-problems/blue-title/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Blue-title.jpg?fit=3955%2C2242&ssl=1" data-orig-size="3955,2242" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Blue title" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Blue-title.jpg?fit=300%2C170&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Blue-title.jpg?fit=468%2C265&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-29792 size-medium" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Blue-title.jpg?resize=300%2C170&ssl=1" alt="" width="300" height="170" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Blue-title.jpg?resize=300%2C170&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Blue-title.jpg?resize=1024%2C580&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Blue-title.jpg?resize=150%2C85&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Blue-title.jpg?resize=768%2C435&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Blue-title.jpg?resize=1536%2C871&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Blue-title.jpg?resize=2048%2C1161&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Blue-title.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Blue-title.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a>Click </span><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GbDDEeLbG2oxaSgLeZqp9h8sHOECMGe5/view?usp=sharing"><span style="font-weight: 400;">here</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> if you can’t see the </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Team Blue</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> presentation.</span></p> <h3><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y_9ftOW4ezBkhFP1sAzgp4otnkp9lAU0/view?usp=sharing"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Team Information Pollution</span></i></a></h3> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y_9ftOW4ezBkhFP1sAzgp4otnkp9lAU0/view"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29786" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/07/25/lean-meets-wicked-problems/team-4-title/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/team-4-title.jpg?fit=960%2C540&ssl=1" data-orig-size="960,540" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="team 4 title" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/team-4-title.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/team-4-title.jpg?fit=468%2C263&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-29786 size-medium" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/team-4-title.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/team-4-title.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/team-4-title.jpg?resize=150%2C84&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/team-4-title.jpg?resize=768%2C432&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/team-4-title.jpg?w=960&ssl=1 960w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a>Click </span><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y_9ftOW4ezBkhFP1sAzgp4otnkp9lAU0/view?usp=sharing"><span style="font-weight: 400;">here</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> if you can’t see the </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Team Information Pollution</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> presentation.</span></p> <h3><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/12a2aLdG25YaPUzFwpVlIeO346DUrfH2m/view"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Team Ukraine</span></i></a></h3> <p><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/12a2aLdG25YaPUzFwpVlIeO346DUrfH2m/view"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29780" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/07/25/lean-meets-wicked-problems/team-1-title/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-1-Title.jpg?fit=2000%2C1233&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2000,1233" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Team 1 Title" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-1-Title.jpg?fit=300%2C185&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-1-Title.jpg?fit=468%2C288&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-29780 size-medium" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-1-Title.jpg?resize=300%2C185&ssl=1" alt="" width="300" height="185" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-1-Title.jpg?resize=300%2C185&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-1-Title.jpg?resize=1024%2C631&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-1-Title.jpg?resize=150%2C92&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-1-Title.jpg?resize=768%2C473&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-1-Title.jpg?resize=1536%2C947&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-1-Title.jpg?w=2000&ssl=1 2000w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-1-Title.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-1-Title.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Click </span><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/12a2aLdG25YaPUzFwpVlIeO346DUrfH2m/view?usp=sharing"><span style="font-weight: 400;">here</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> if you can’t see the </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Team Ukraine</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> presentation.</span></p> <h3><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-SPOZhBEeidJanTCEBMMKoFlduXex1fL/view?usp=sharing"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Team Wicked Space</span></i></a></h3> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-SPOZhBEeidJanTCEBMMKoFlduXex1fL/view"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29794" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/07/25/lean-meets-wicked-problems/space-title/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Space-title.jpg?fit=3921%2C2208&ssl=1" data-orig-size="3921,2208" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Space title" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Space-title.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Space-title.jpg?fit=468%2C264&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-29794 size-medium" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Space-title.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Space-title.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Space-title.jpg?resize=1024%2C577&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Space-title.jpg?resize=150%2C84&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Space-title.jpg?resize=768%2C432&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Space-title.jpg?resize=1536%2C865&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Space-title.jpg?resize=2048%2C1153&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Space-title.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Space-title.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a>Click </span><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-SPOZhBEeidJanTCEBMMKoFlduXex1fL/view?usp=sharing"><span style="font-weight: 400;">here</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> if you can’t see the </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Team Wicked Space</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> presentation.</span></p> <h3><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G_VJL8aqYKU5jGdKvEzpZy_Kh69iocuW/view?usp=sharing"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Team Future Proof the Navy</span></i></a></h3> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G_VJL8aqYKU5jGdKvEzpZy_Kh69iocuW/view"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29788" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/07/25/lean-meets-wicked-problems/team-7-title/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Team-7-title.jpg?fit=960%2C540&ssl=1" data-orig-size="960,540" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Team 7 title" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" 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style="font-weight: 400;">here</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> if you can’t see the Future Proof the Navy</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">presentation.</span></p> <p><br style="font-weight: 400;" /><br style="font-weight: 400;" /></p> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-print"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-print sd-button" href="https://steveblank.com/2023/07/25/lean-meets-wicked-problems/" target="_blank" title="Click to print" ><span>Print</span></a></li><li class="share-email"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-email sd-button" href="mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Lean%20Meets%20Wicked%20Problems&body=https%3A%2F%2Fsteveblank.com%2F2023%2F07%2F25%2Flean-meets-wicked-problems%2F&share=email" target="_blank" title="Click to email 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status-publish format-standard hentry category-corporate-govt-innovation category-customer-development" id="post-29326"> <h2><a href="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/10/be-where-your-business-is/" rel="bookmark">Be Where Your Business Is</a></h2> <div class="postinfo"> Posted on <span class="postdate">January 10, 2023</span> by steve blank </div> <div class="entry"> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://readwrite.com/be-where-your-business-is/"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29357" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/10/be-where-your-business-is/readwrite-logo/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/readwrite-logo.jpg?fit=318%2C78&ssl=1" data-orig-size="318,78" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="readwrite logo" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/readwrite-logo.jpg?fit=300%2C74&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/readwrite-logo.jpg?fit=318%2C78&ssl=1" class="alignleft wp-image-29357 size-thumbnail" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/readwrite-logo.jpg?resize=150%2C37&ssl=1" alt="" width="150" height="37" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/readwrite-logo.jpg?resize=150%2C37&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/readwrite-logo.jpg?resize=300%2C74&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/readwrite-logo.jpg?w=318&ssl=1 318w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /></a><a href="https://readwrite.com/be-where-your-business-is/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">This post</a> previously appeared on the <a href="https://readwrite.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">readwrite</a> blog.</p> <p> </p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">A CEO running a B-to-B startup in needs to live in the city where their business is – or else they’ll never scale.</p> <hr /> <p style="font-weight: 400;">I was having breakfast with Erin, an ex-student, just off a red-eye flight from New York. She’s built a 65-person startup selling enterprise software to the financial services industry. Erin had previously worked in New York for one of those companies and had a stellar reputation in the industry. As one would expect, with banks and hedge funds as customers, the majority were based in the New York metropolitan area.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/money-washing-over-banks.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29328" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/10/be-where-your-business-is/money-washing-over-banks/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/money-washing-over-banks.jpg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1024,1024" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="money washing over banks" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/money-washing-over-banks.jpg?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/money-washing-over-banks.jpg?fit=468%2C468&ssl=1" class="alignright wp-image-29328" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/money-washing-over-banks.jpg?resize=191%2C191&ssl=1" alt="" width="191" height="191" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/money-washing-over-banks.jpg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/money-washing-over-banks.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/money-washing-over-banks.jpg?resize=768%2C768&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/money-washing-over-banks.jpg?w=1024&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/money-washing-over-banks.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 191px) 100vw, 191px" /></a><strong>Where Are Your Biggest Business Deals?</strong><br /> Looking a bit bleary-eyed, Erin explained, “Customers love our product, and I think we’ve found product/market fit. I personally sold the first big deals and hired the VP of sales who’s building the sales team in our New York office. They’re growing the number of accounts and the deal size, but it feels like we’re incrementally growing a small business, not heading for exponential growth. I know the opportunity is much bigger, but I can’t put my finger on what’s wrong.”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Erin continued, “My investors are starting to get impatient. They’re comparing us to another startup in our space that’s growing much faster. My VP of Sales and I are running as fast as we can, but I’ve been around long enough to know I might be the ex-CEO if we can’t scale.”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">While Erin’s main sales office is in New York, next to her major prospects and customers, Erin’s company was headquartered in Silicon Valley, down the street from where we were having breakfast. During the Covid pandemic, most of her engineering team worked remotely. Her inside sales team (Sales Development and Business Development reps) used email, phone, social media and Zoom for prospecting and generating leads. At the same time, her account executives were able to use Zoom for sales calls and close and grow business virtually.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>There’s a Pattern Here<br /> </strong>Over breakfast, I listened to Erin describe what at first seemed like a series of disconnected events.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">First, a new competitor started up. Initially, she wasn’t concerned as the competitor’s product had only a subset of the features that Erin’s company did. However, the competitor’s headquarters was based in New York, and their VP of Sales and CEO were now meeting face-to-face with customers, most of whom had returned to their offices. While Erin’s New York-based account execs were selling to the middle tier management of organizations, the CEO of her competitor had developed relationships with the exec staff of potential customers. She lamented, “We’ve lost a couple of deals because we were selling at the wrong level.”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Second, Erin’s VP of sales had just bought a condo in Miami to be next to her aging parents, so she was commuting to NY four days a week and managing the sales force from Miami when she wasn’t in New York. Erin sighed, “She’s as exhausted as I am flying up and down the East Coast.”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Third, Erin’s account execs were running into the typical organizational speedbumps and roadblocks that closing big deals often encounter. However, solving them via email, Zoom and once-a-month fly-in meetings wasn’t the same as the NY account execs being able to say, “Hey, our VP of Sales and CEO are just down the street. Can we all grab a quick coffee and talk this over?” Issues that could have been solved casually and quickly ballooned into ones that took more work and sometimes a plane trip for her VP of Sales or Erin to solve.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">By the time we had finished breakfast it was clear to me that Erin was the one putting obstacles in front of her path to scale. Here’s what I observed and suggested.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Keep Your Eye on The Prize</strong><strong><br /> </strong>While Erin had sold the first deals herself, she needed to consider whether each deal happened because as CEO, she could call on the company’s engineers to pivot the product. Were the account execs in New York trying to execute a sales model that wasn’t yet repeatable and scalable without the founder’s intervention? Had a repeatable and scalable sales process truly been validated? Or did each sale require a heroic effort?</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Next, setting up their New York office without Erin or her VP of Sales physically living in New York might have worked during Covid but was now holding her company back. At this phase of her company the goal of the office shouldn’t be to add new accounts incrementally – but should be how to scale – repeatably. Hiring account execs in an office in New York let Erin believe that she had<em> a tested, validated, and repeatable sales playbook that could rapidly scale the business. The reality was that without her and the VP of Sales living and breathing the business in New York, they were trying to scale a startup remotely</em>.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Her early customers told Erin that her company had built a series of truly disruptive financial service products. But now, the company was in a different phase – it needed <em>to build and grow the business exponentially</em>. And in this phase, her focus as a CEO needed to change – from searching for product/market fit to driving exponential growth.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29329" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/10/be-where-your-business-is/erins-path/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?fit=2303%2C495&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2303,495" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Erins Path" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?fit=300%2C64&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?fit=468%2C101&ssl=1" class=" wp-image-29329 aligncenter" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?resize=468%2C101&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="101" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?resize=1024%2C220&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?resize=300%2C64&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?resize=150%2C32&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?resize=768%2C165&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?resize=1536%2C330&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?resize=2048%2C440&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a>Exponential Growth Requires Relentless Execution<br /> </strong>Because most of her company’s customers were concentrated in a single city, Erin and her VP of Sales needed to be there – not visiting in a hotel room. I suggested that:</p> <ul> <li>Erin had to quickly decide if she wanted to be the one to scale the business. If not, her investors were going to find someone who could.</li> <li>If so, she needed to realize that she had missed an important transition in her company. In a high-dollar B-to-B business, building and scaling sales can’t be done remotely. And she was losing ground every day. Her New York office needed a footprint larger than she was. It needed business development and marketing people rapidly creating demand.</li> <li>Her VP of Sales might be wonderful, but with the all the travel the company is only getting her half-time. Erin needs a full-time head of sales in New York. Time to have a difficult conversation.</li> <li>Because she was behind, Erin needed to rent an apartment in New York for a year, and spend the next six months there and at least two weeks a month after that. Her goal was to: <ul> <li>1) Validate that there was a repeatable sales process. It not, build one</li> <li>2) Build a New York office that could create a sales and marketing footprint without her presence. Only then could she cut back her time in the City.</li> </ul> </li> <li>Finally, she needed to consider that if her customers were primarily in New York and the engineers were working remotely, why weren’t the company headquarters in New York?</li> </ul> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>I Hate New York<br /> </strong>As we dug into these issues, I was pretty surprised to hear her say, “I spent a big part of my career in New York. I thought coming out to Stanford and the West Coast meant I could leave the bureaucracy of large companies and that culture behind. Covid let me do that for a few years. I guess now I’m just avoiding jumping back into an environment I thought I had left.”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">We lingered over coffee as I suggested it was time for her to take stock of what’s next. She had something rare – a services company that provided real value with products that early customers loved. Her staff didn’t think they were joining a small business, neither did her investors. If she wasn’t prepared to build something to its potential, what was her next move?</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Lessons Learned</strong></p> <blockquote> <ul> <li>For a startup, the next step after finding product/market fit is finding a repeatable and scalable sales process</li> <li>This requires a transition to the relentless execution of creating demand and exponentially growing sales</li> <li>If your customers are concentrated in a city or region, you need to be where your customers are</li> <li>The CEO needs to lead this growth focus</li> <li>And then hand it off to a team equally capable and committed</li> </ul> </blockquote> <iframe loading="lazy" width="100%" height="91" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F1423509037&width=false&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&visual=false&show_comments=false&color=false&show_user=false&show_reposts=false"></iframe> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-print"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-print sd-button" href="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/10/be-where-your-business-is/" target="_blank" title="Click to print" ><span>Print</span></a></li><li class="share-email"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-email sd-button" href="mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Be%20Where%20Your%20Business%20Is&body=https%3A%2F%2Fsteveblank.com%2F2023%2F01%2F10%2Fbe-where-your-business-is%2F&share=email" target="_blank" title="Click to email a link to a friend" data-email-share-error-title="Do you have email set up?" data-email-share-error-text="If you're having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. 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category-corporate-govt-innovation category-customer-development" id="post-29172"> <h2><a href="https://steveblank.com/2022/10/25/a-simple-map-for-innovation-at-scale/" rel="bookmark">A Simple Map for Innovation at Scale</a></h2> <div class="postinfo"> Posted on <span class="postdate">October 25, 2022</span> by steve blank </div> <div class="entry"> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://www.bcg.com/bcg-henderson-institute/ideas-of-tomorrow"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29185" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2022/10/25/a-simple-map-for-innovation-at-scale/bcg/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/BCG.jpg?fit=666%2C72&ssl=1" data-orig-size="666,72" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="BCG" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/BCG.jpg?fit=300%2C32&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/BCG.jpg?fit=468%2C51&ssl=1" class="alignleft wp-image-29185" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/BCG.jpg?resize=185%2C20&ssl=1" alt="" width="185" height="20" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/BCG.jpg?resize=150%2C16&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/BCG.jpg?resize=300%2C32&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/BCG.jpg?w=666&ssl=1 666w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 185px) 100vw, 185px" /></a>An edited version of this article previously appeared in the <a href="https://bcghendersoninstitute.com/a-simple-map-for-innovation-at-scale-de6b80c526b2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Boston Consulting Group’s strategy think tank website</a>.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">I spent last week at a global Fortune 50 company offsite watching them grapple with disruption. This 100+-year-old company has seven major product divisions, each with hundreds of products. Currently a market leader, they’re watching a new and relentless competitor with more money, more people and more advanced technology appear seemingly out of nowhere, attempting to grab customers and gain market share.<a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Hokusai-tidal-wave-small.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29176" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2022/10/25/a-simple-map-for-innovation-at-scale/hokusai-tidal-wave-small/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Hokusai-tidal-wave-small.jpg?fit=640%2C640&ssl=1" data-orig-size="640,640" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Hokusai tidal wave small" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Hokusai-tidal-wave-small.jpg?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Hokusai-tidal-wave-small.jpg?fit=468%2C468&ssl=1" class="alignright wp-image-29176" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Hokusai-tidal-wave-small.jpg?resize=254%2C254&ssl=1" alt="" width="254" height="254" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Hokusai-tidal-wave-small.jpg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Hokusai-tidal-wave-small.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Hokusai-tidal-wave-small.jpg?w=640&ssl=1 640w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 254px) 100vw, 254px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">This company was so serious about dealing with this threat (they described it as “existential to their survival”) that they had mobilized the entire corporation to come up with new solutions. This wasn’t a small undertaking, because the threats were coming from multiple areas in multiple dimensions; How do they embrace new technologies? How do they convert existing manufacturing plants (and their workforce) for a completely new set of technologies? How do they bring on new supply chains? How do they become present on new social media and communications channels? How do they connect with a new generation of customers who had no brand loyalty? How to they use the new distribution channels competitors have adopted? How do they make these transitions without alienating and losing their existing customers, distribution channels and partners? And how do they motivate their most important asset – their people – to operate with speed, urgency, and passion?</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The company believed they had a handful of years to solve these problems before their decline would become irreversible. This meeting was a biannual gathering of all the leadership involved in the corporate-wide initiatives to out-innovate their new disruptors. They called it the “Tsunami Initiative” to emphasize they were fighting the tidal wave of creative destruction engulfing their industry.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">To succeed they realized this isn’t simply coming up with one new product. It meant pivoting an entire company – and its culture. The scale of solutions needed dwarf anything a single startup would be working on.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The company had hired a leading management consulting firm that helped them select 15 critical areas of change the Tsunami Initiative was tasked to work on. My hosts, John and Avika, at the offsite were the co-leads overseeing the 15 topic areas. The consulting firm suggested that they organize these 15 topic areas as a matrix organization, and the ballroom was filled with several hundred people from across their company – action groups and subgroups with people from across the company: engineering, manufacturing, market analysis and collection, distribution channels, and sales. Some of the teams even included some of their close partners. Over a thousand more were working on the projects in offices scattered across the globe.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">John and Avika had invited me to look at their innovation process and offer some suggestions.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Are these the real problems?<br /> </strong>This was one of the best organized innovation initiatives I have seen. All 15 topic had team leads presenting poster sessions, there were presenters from the field sales and partners emphasizing the urgency and specificity of the problems, and there were breakout sessions where the topic area teams brainstormed with each other. After the end of the day people gathered around the firepit for informal conversations. It was a testament to John and Avika’s leadership that even off duty people were passionately debating how to solve these problems. It was an amazing display of organizational esprit de corps.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">While the subject of each of the 15 topic areas had been suggested by the consulting firm, it was in conjunction with the company’s corporate strategy group, and the people who generated these topic area requirements were part of the offsite. Not only were the requirements people in attendance but so was a transition team to facilitate the delivery of the products from these topic teams into production and sales.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">However, I noticed that several of the requirements from corporate strategy seemed to be priorities given to them from others (e.g. here are the problems the CFO or CEO or board thinks we ought to work on) or likely here are the topics the consulting firm thought they should focus on) and/or were from subject matter experts (e.g. I’m the expert in this field. No need to talk to anyone else; here’s what we need). It appeared the corporate strategy group was delivering problems as fixed requirements, e.g. deliver these specific features and functions the solution ought to provide.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Here was a major effort involving lots of people but missing the chance to get the root cause of the problems.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">I told John and Avika that I understood some requirements were known and immutable. However, when <em>all </em>of the requirements are handed to the action teams this way the assumption is that the problems have been validated, and the teams do not need to do any further exploration of the problem space themselves.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Those tight bounds on requirements constrain the ability of the topic area action teams to:</p> <ul> <li>Deeply understand the <em>problems</em> – who are the customers, internal stakeholders (sales, other departments) and beneficiaries (shareholders, etc.)? How to adjudicate between them, priority of the solution, timing of the solutions, minimum feature set, dependencies, etc.</li> <li>Figure out whether the problem is a symptom of something more important</li> <li>Understand whether the problem is immediately solvable, requires multiple minimum viable products to test several solutions, or needs more R&D</li> </ul> <p style="font-weight: 400;">I noticed that with all of the requirements fixed upfront, instead of having a freedom to innovate, the topic area action teams had become extensions of existing product development groups. They were getting trapped into existing mindsets and were likely producing far less than they were capable of. This is a common mistake corporate innovation teams tend to make.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">I reminded them that when team members get out of their buildings and comfort zones, and directly talk to, observe, and interact with the customers, stakeholders and beneficiaries, it allows them to be agile, and the solutions they deliver will be needed, timely, relevant and take less time and resources to develop. It’s the difference between admiring a problem and solving one.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">As I mentioned this, I realized having all fixed requirements is a symptom of something else more interesting – how the topic leads and team members were organized. From where I sat, it seemed there was a lack of a common framework and process.<strong> </strong></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Give the Topic Areas a Common Framework<br /> </strong>I asked John and Avika if they had considered offering the topic action team leaders and their team members a simple conceptual framework (one picture) and common language. I suggested this would allow the teams to know when and how to “ideate” and incorporate innovative ideas that accelerate better outcomes. The framework would use the initial corporate strategy requirements as a starting point rather than a fixed destination. See the diagram.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">I drew them a simple chart and explained that most problems start in the bottom right box.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Validating-problems.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29178" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2022/10/25/a-simple-map-for-innovation-at-scale/validating-problems/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Validating-problems.jpg?fit=718%2C380&ssl=1" data-orig-size="718,380" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Validating problems" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Validating-problems.jpg?fit=300%2C159&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Validating-problems.jpg?fit=468%2C248&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-29178" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Validating-problems.jpg?resize=468%2C248&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="248" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Validating-problems.jpg?w=718&ssl=1 718w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Validating-problems.jpg?resize=300%2C159&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Validating-problems.jpg?resize=150%2C79&ssl=1 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a>These are “unvalidated” problems. Teams would use a customer discovery process to validate them. (At times some problems might require more R&D before they can be solved.) Once the problems are validated, teams move to the box on the bottom left and explore multiple solutions. <em>Both boxes on the bottom are where ideation and innovation-type of problem/solution brainstorming are critical</em>. At times this can be accelerated by bringing in the horizon 3, out-of-the-box thinkers that every company has, and let them lend their critical eye to the problem/solution.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">If a solution is found and solves the problem, the team heads up to the box on the top left.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">But I explained that very often the solution is unknown. In that case think about having the teams do a “technical terrain walk.” This is the process of describing the problem to multiple sources (vendors, internal developers, other internal programs) debriefing on the sum of what was found. A terrain walk often discovers that the problem is actually a symptom of another problem or that the sources see it as a different version of the problem. Or that an existing solution already exists or can be modified to fit.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">But often, no existing solution exists. In this case, teams could head to the box on the top right and build Minimal Viable Products – the smallest feature set to test with customers and partners. This MVP testing often results in new learnings from the customers, beneficiaries, and stakeholders – for example, they may tell the topic developer that the first 20% of the deliverable is “good enough” or the problem has changed, or the timing has changed, or it needs to be compatible with something else, etc. Finally, when a solution is wanted by customers/beneficiaries/stakeholders and is technically feasible, then the teams move to the box on the top left.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The result of this would be teams rapidly iterating to deliver solutions wanted and needed by customers within the limited time the company had left.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Creative destruction<br /> </strong>Those companies that make it do so with an integrated effort of inspired and visionary leadership, motivated people, innovative products, and relentless execution and passion.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Watching and listening to hundreds of people fighting the tsunami in a legendary company was humbling.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">I hope they make it.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Lessons Learned</strong></p> <blockquote> <ul> <li>Creative destruction and disruption will happen to every company. How will you respond?</li> <li>Topic action teams need to deeply understand the problems as the customer understands them, not just what the corporate strategy requirements dictate <ul> <li>This can’t be done without talking directly to the customers, internal stakeholders, and partners</li> </ul> </li> <li>Consider if the corporate strategy team should be more facilitators than gatekeepers</li> <li>A light-weight way to keep topic teams in sync with corporate strategy is to offer a common innovation language and problem and solution framework</li> </ul> </blockquote> <iframe loading="lazy" width="100%" height="91" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F1372590439&width=false&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&visual=false&show_comments=false&color=false&show_user=false&show_reposts=false"></iframe> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-print"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-print sd-button" href="https://steveblank.com/2022/10/25/a-simple-map-for-innovation-at-scale/" target="_blank" title="Click to print" ><span>Print</span></a></li><li class="share-email"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-email sd-button" href="mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20A%20Simple%20Map%20for%20Innovation%20at%20Scale&body=https%3A%2F%2Fsteveblank.com%2F2022%2F10%2F25%2Fa-simple-map-for-innovation-at-scale%2F&share=email" target="_blank" title="Click to email a link to a friend" data-email-share-error-title="Do you have email set up?" data-email-share-error-text="If you're having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. 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After a bit of catching up I offered he was looking a bit lost. “I just got handed a project to help our firm enter a new industry – semiconductors. They want me to map out the space so we can figure out where we can add value.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-a-Market.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29137" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2022/09/20/mapping-the-unknown-the-ten-steps-to-map-any-industry/mapping-a-market/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-a-Market.jpg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1024,1024" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Mapping a Market" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-a-Market.jpg?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-a-Market.jpg?fit=468%2C468&ssl=1" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-29137" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-a-Market.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1" alt="" width="150" height="150" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-a-Market.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-a-Market.jpg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-a-Market.jpg?resize=768%2C768&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-a-Market.jpg?w=1024&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-a-Market.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /></a>When I asked what they already knew about it, they tossed me a tall stack of industry and stock analyst reports, company names, web sites, blogs. I started reading through a bunch of it and I’m drowning in data but don’t know where to start. I feel like I don’t know a thing.”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">I told Shenwei I was happy for him because he had just been handed an awesome learning opportunity – how to rapidly understand and then map any new market. He gave me a “easy for you to say” look, but before h<a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-1st-pass.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29052" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2022/09/20/mapping-the-unknown-the-ten-steps-to-map-any-industry/mapping-1st-pass/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-1st-pass.jpg?fit=229%2C238&ssl=1" data-orig-size="229,238" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Mapping 1st pass" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-1st-pass.jpg?fit=229%2C238&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-1st-pass.jpg?fit=229%2C238&ssl=1" class="alignright wp-image-29052" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-1st-pass.jpg?resize=141%2C146&ssl=1" alt="" width="141" height="146" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-1st-pass.jpg?w=229&ssl=1 229w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-1st-pass.jpg?resize=144%2C150&ssl=1 144w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 141px) 100vw, 141px" /></a>e could object I handed him a pen and a napkin and asked him to write down the names of companies and concepts he read about that have anything to do with the semiconductor business – in 30 seconds. He quickly came up with a list with 9 names/terms. (See Mapping – First Pass)</p> <p>“Great, now we have a start. Now give me a few words that describe what they do, or mean, or what you don’t know about them.”</p> <div style="background-color: #ededed;"> <div style="border: 1px solid black; padding: 5px;"><em>Don’t let the enormity of unknowns frighten you. Start with what you do know</em>.</div> </div> <p style="font-weight: 400;">After a few minutes he came up with a napkin sketch that looked like the picture in Mapping – Second Pass. <a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-2nd-pass.jpg?ssl=1"><br /> <img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29056" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2022/09/20/mapping-the-unknown-the-ten-steps-to-map-any-industry/mapping-2nd-pass/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-2nd-pass.jpg?fit=446%2C426&ssl=1" data-orig-size="446,426" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Mapping 2nd pass" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-2nd-pass.jpg?fit=300%2C287&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-2nd-pass.jpg?fit=446%2C426&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-29056" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-2nd-pass.jpg?resize=286%2C273&ssl=1" alt="" width="286" height="273" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-2nd-pass.jpg?w=446&ssl=1 446w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-2nd-pass.jpg?resize=300%2C287&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-2nd-pass.jpg?resize=150%2C143&ssl=1 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 286px) 100vw, 286px" /></a>Now we had some progress.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">I pointed out he now had a starter list that not only contained companies but the beginning of a map of the relationships between those companies. And while he had a few facts, others were hypotheses and concepts. And he had a ton of unanswered questions.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">We spent the next 20 minutes deconstructing that sketch and mapping out the Second Pass list as a diagram (see Mapping – Third Pass.)</p> <div style="background-color: #ededed;"> <div style="border: 1px solid black; padding: 5px;"><em>As you keep reading more materials, you’ll have more questions than facts. Your goal is to first turn the questions into testable hypotheses (guesses). Then see if you can find data that turns the hypotheses into facts. For a while the questions will start accumulating faster than the facts. That’s OK.</em></div> </div> <p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-3rd-pass.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29058" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2022/09/20/mapping-the-unknown-the-ten-steps-to-map-any-industry/mapping-3rd-pass/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-3rd-pass.jpg?fit=887%2C482&ssl=1" data-orig-size="887,482" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Mapping 3rd pass" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-3rd-pass.jpg?fit=300%2C163&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-3rd-pass.jpg?fit=468%2C254&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-29058" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-3rd-pass.jpg?resize=468%2C254&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="254" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-3rd-pass.jpg?w=887&ssl=1 887w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-3rd-pass.jpg?resize=300%2C163&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-3rd-pass.jpg?resize=150%2C82&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-3rd-pass.jpg?resize=768%2C417&ssl=1 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a>Note that even with just the sparse set of information Shenwei had, in the bottom right-hand corner of his third mapping pass, a relationship diagram of the semiconductor industry was beginning to emerge.</p> <div style="background-color: #ededed;"> <div style="border: 1px solid black; padding: 5px;"><em>Drawing a diagram of the relationships of companies in an industry can help you deeply understand how the industry works and who the key players are. Start building one immediately. As you find you can’t fill in all the relationships, the gaps outlining what you need to learn will become immediately visible.</em></div> </div> <p style="font-weight: 400;">As the information fog was beginning to lift, I could see Shenwei’s confidence returning. I pointed out that he had a real advantage that his assignment was in a known industry with lots of available information. He quickly realized that he could keep adding information to the columns in the third mapping pass as he read through the reports and web sites.</p> <div style="background-color: #ededed;"> <div style="border: 1px solid black; padding: 5px;"><em>Google and Google Scholar are your best friends. As you discover new information increase your search terms.</em></div> </div> <p style="font-weight: 400;">My suggestion was to use the diagram in the third mapping pass as the beginning of a wall chart – either physically (or virtually if he could keep it in all in his head). And every time he learned more about the industry to update the relationship diagram of the industry and its segments. (When he pointed out that there were existing diagrams of the semiconductor industry he could copy, I suggested that he ignore them. The goal was for him to understand the industry well enough that he could draw his own map ab initio – from the beginning. And if he did so, he might create a much better one.)</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">When lunch was over Shenwei asked if it was OK if he checked in with me as he learned new things and I agreed. What he didn’t know was that this was only the first step in a ten-step industry mapping process.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Epilog</strong></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Over the next few weeks Shenwei shared what he had learned and sent me his increasingly refined and updated industry relationship map. (The 4th mapping pass showed up 48 hours later.)</span><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-4th-pass.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29067" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2022/09/20/mapping-the-unknown-the-ten-steps-to-map-any-industry/mapping-4th-pass/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-4th-pass.jpg?fit=552%2C369&ssl=1" data-orig-size="552,369" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Mapping 4th pass" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-4th-pass.jpg?fit=300%2C201&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-4th-pass.jpg?fit=468%2C313&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-29067" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-4th-pass.jpg?resize=408%2C273&ssl=1" alt="" width="408" height="273" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-4th-pass.jpg?w=552&ssl=1 552w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-4th-pass.jpg?resize=300%2C201&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Mapping-4th-pass.jpg?resize=150%2C100&ssl=1 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 408px) 100vw, 408px" /></a>In exchange I shared with him the news that he was on step one of a ten step industry mapping program. Other the next few weeks he quickly built on the industry map to answer que<a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Semi-industry-1-slide.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29066" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2022/09/20/mapping-the-unknown-the-ten-steps-to-map-any-industry/semi-industry-1-slide/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Semi-industry-1-slide.jpg?fit=804%2C493&ssl=1" data-orig-size="804,493" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Semi industry 1 slide" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Semi-industry-1-slide.jpg?fit=300%2C184&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Semi-industry-1-slide.jpg?fit=468%2C287&ssl=1" class="alignright wp-image-29066" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Semi-industry-1-slide.jpg?resize=337%2C207&ssl=1" alt="" width="337" height="207" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Semi-industry-1-slide.jpg?w=804&ssl=1 804w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Semi-industry-1-slide.jpg?resize=300%2C184&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Semi-industry-1-slide.jpg?resize=150%2C92&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Semi-industry-1-slide.jpg?resize=768%2C471&ssl=1 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 337px) 100vw, 337px" /></a>stions 2 through 10 below.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Two weeks later he handed his leadership an industry report that covered the ten steps below and contained a sophisticated industry diagram he created from scratch. A far cry from his original napkin sketch!</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Six months later his work on this project convinced his company that there was a large opportunity in the semiconductor space, and they started a new practice with him in it. His work won him the “best new employee” award.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>The Ten Steps to Map any Industry</strong></p> <div style="background-color: #ededed;"> <div style="border: 1px solid black; padding: 5px;"><em>Start by continuously refining your understanding of the industry by diagramming it. List all the new words you encounter and create a glossary in your own words. Start collecting the best sources of information you’ve read.</em></div> </div> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Basic Industry Understanding</strong></p> <ol> <li>Diagram the industry and its segments <ol> <li>Start with anything</li> <li>Build your learning by successive iteration</li> <li>Who are the key suppliers to each segment?</li> <li>How does this industry feed into the larger economy?</li> </ol> </li> <li>Create a glossary of industry unique terms <ol> <li>Can you explain them to others? Are there analogies to other markets?</li> </ol> </li> <li>Who are the industry experts in each segment? For the entire industry? <ol> <li>Economic experts? E.g. industry analysts, universities, think tanks</li> <li>Technology experts? E.g. universities, think tanks</li> <li>Geographic experts?</li> </ol> </li> <li>Key Conferences, blogs, web sites, etc. <ol> <li>What are the best opensource data feeds?</li> <li>What are the best paid resources?</li> </ol> </li> </ol> <div style="background-color: #ededed;"> <div style="border: 1px solid black; padding: 5px;"><em>Overlay numbers, dollars, market share, Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) on all parts of the industry diagram. That will inform velocity and direction of the market.</em></div> </div> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Detailed Industry Understanding</strong></p> <ol start="5"> <li>Who are the market leaders? New entrants? In revenue, market share and growth rate <ol> <li>In the U.S.</li> <li>Western countries</li> <li>China</li> </ol> </li> <li>Understand the technology flows <ol> <li>Who builds on top of who</li> <li>Who is critical versus who can be substituted</li> </ol> </li> <li>Understand the economic flows <ol> <li>Who buys from who in this industry</li> <li>Who buys the output from this industry.</li> <li>How cyclical is demand?</li> <li>What are the demand drivers?</li> <li>How do companies inside each segment get funded? Any differences in capital requirements? Ease of starting, etc.</li> </ol> </li> <li>If applicable, understand the personnel flow for each segment <ol> <li>Do people move just between their segments or up and down through the entire industry?</li> <li>Where do they get trained?</li> </ol> </li> </ol> <div style="background-color: #ededed;"> <div style="border: 1px solid black; padding: 5px;"><em>The beginner’s forecasting method is to simply extrapolate current growth rates forward. But in today’s technology markets, discontinuities are coming fast and furious. Are there other technologies from adjacent markets will impact this one? (e.g. AI, Quantum, High performance computing,…?). Are there other global or national economic initiatives that could change the shape of the market?</em></div> </div> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Forecasting</strong></p> <ol start="9"> <li>What’s changed in the last 10 years? 5 years? <ol> <li>Diagram the past incarnations of the industry</li> </ol> </li> <li>What’s going to change in the next 5 years? <ol> <li>Any big insight on disruption?</li> <li>New entrants?</li> <li>New technology?</li> <li>New foreign suppliers?</li> <li>Diagram your model of the industry in 5 years</li> </ol> </li> </ol> <iframe loading="lazy" width="100%" height="91" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F1355003500&width=false&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&visual=false&show_comments=false&color=false&show_user=false&show_reposts=false"></iframe> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-print"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-print sd-button" href="https://steveblank.com/2022/09/20/mapping-the-unknown-the-ten-steps-to-map-any-industry/" target="_blank" title="Click to print" ><span>Print</span></a></li><li class="share-email"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-email sd-button" href="mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Mapping%20the%20Unknown%20%E2%80%93%20The%20Ten%20Steps%20to%20Map%20Any%20Industry&body=https%3A%2F%2Fsteveblank.com%2F2022%2F09%2F20%2Fmapping-the-unknown-the-ten-steps-to-map-any-industry%2F&share=email" target="_blank" title="Click to email a link to a friend" data-email-share-error-title="Do you have email set up?" data-email-share-error-text="If you're having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. 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the 5th Lean Innovation Educators Summit</a></h2> <div class="postinfo"> Posted on <span class="postdate">January 19, 2022</span> by steve blank </div> <div class="entry"> <p><b class=""><a href="https://www.commonmission.us/summit"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="28272" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/lean-summit-2022/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Lean-Summit-2022.jpg?fit=2312%2C944&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2312,944" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Lean Summit 2022" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Lean-Summit-2022.jpg?fit=300%2C122&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Lean-Summit-2022.jpg?fit=468%2C191&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-28272 size-full" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Lean-Summit-2022.jpg?resize=468%2C191&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="191" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Lean-Summit-2022.jpg?w=2312&ssl=1 2312w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Lean-Summit-2022.jpg?resize=300%2C122&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Lean-Summit-2022.jpg?resize=1024%2C418&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Lean-Summit-2022.jpg?resize=150%2C61&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Lean-Summit-2022.jpg?resize=768%2C314&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Lean-Summit-2022.jpg?resize=1536%2C627&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Lean-Summit-2022.jpg?resize=2048%2C836&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Lean-Summit-2022.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Lean-Summit-2022.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a>SAVE THE DATE</b><span class=""> for the</span><span class=""> </span><b class="">5th <a href="https://www.commonmission.us/summit">Lean Innovation Educators Summit</a> on The Role of Educators and the University in Building Sustainable and Innovative Ecosystems </b><br class="" /><em><span class="">February 3rd, 2022 from 1 to 4pm EST, 10 to 1pm PST </span></em><br class="" /><span class="" style="color: #5856d6; font-family: Arial;"><span class=""><br class="" /></span></span><span class="">Join me, Jerry Engel, Pete Newell, and Steve Weinstein as well as educators from universities around the world for this upcoming event. </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="color: #5856d6; font-family: Arial;"><span class=""><br class="" /></span></span><span class="">The Summit brings together leading entrepreneurship educators who are putting Lean Innovation to work in their classrooms, accelerators, and students’ ventures. This is the fifth edition of this semi-annual gathering, a supportive peer community of educators, and we’ll meet to discuss how we adapt to meet the challenges of the current tumultuous environment. The upcoming session will focus on the role of the university, and other important organizations in our ecosystems, in supporting our critical mission of preparing the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators. </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="color: #5856d6; font-family: Arial;"><span class=""><br class="" /></span></span><b class="">Why?</b><br class="" /><span class="">The role of entrepreneurs and the ecosystem that supports them is even more important as the pace of change accelerates. The challenges of the pandemic and global warming highlight the importance of capturing value from technology and the innovators who create novel and effective solutions. How do we as entrepreneurship and innovation educators best prepare the next generation? What is the role of the university in helping us do this?</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="color: #5856d6; font-family: Arial;"><span class=""><br class="" /></span></span><b class="">What?</b><br class="" /><span class="">Our key note speaker is Dr. Richard Lyons of UC Berkeley – the University’s first ever Chief Innovation Officer. After ten years as Dean of the Berkeley Haas School of Business, Rich brings a fresh and broad perspective. Stimulated by Professor Lyon’s keynote, we’ll get to the heart of the Summit, our peer to peer discussions. In these moderated sessions we’ll discuss best practices with colleagues from around the world. We’ll then share the results of the breakout sessions with everyone.</span></p> <p><span class="" style="font-family: Arial;"><b class="">How?</b><br class="" />This session is free but limited to Innovation educators. You can register for the event <a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUpfuCprTgrGNCzwwrZfB26wj9DDFWvoUMs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a> and learn more on our website: <a class="" href="https://www.commonmission.us/summit" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.commonmission.us/summit</a>. We look forward to gathering as a community to continue shaping the future of Lean Innovation Education.</span></p> <p><span class="">Panelists and moderators include: </span></p> <div>Ivy Schultz – Columbia University</div> <div>Victoria Larke – University of Toronto</div> <div>Ali Hawks – BMNT</div> <div>Julie Collins – Georgia Tech</div> <div>Babu DasGupta – University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee</div> <div>Bob Dorf – Columbia University</div> <div>Michael Marasco – Northwestern University</div> <div>Sabra Horne – BMNT</div> <div>Phil Weilerstein – Venture Well</div> <div>Tyrome Smith – Common Mission Project</div> <div>Thomas O’Neal – University of Central Florida</div> <div>Paul Fox – La Salle University</div> <div>Philip Bouchard – TrustedPeer Entrepreneurship</div> <div>Jim Hornthal – UC Berkeley</div> <div>Todd Morrill – UC Berkeley</div> <div>Todd Basche – BMNT</div> <div>Dave Chapman – University College London</div> <div>Stephanie Marrus – University of California – San Francisco</div> <div>Sid Saleh – Colorado School of Mines</div> <div>Joe Smith – Department of Defense</div> <div>Jim Chung – George Washington University</p> <p><strong>When</strong>?</div> <div class=""> <div>See you <em>February 3rd, 2022 from 1 to 4pm EST, 10 to 1pm PST</em>.</div> </div> <div>Register <span class="" style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUpfuCprTgrGNCzwwrZfB26wj9DDFWvoUMs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a></span></div> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-print"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-print sd-button" href="https://steveblank.com/2022/01/19/save-the-date-the-5th-lean-innovation-educators-summit/" target="_blank" title="Click to print" ><span>Print</span></a></li><li class="share-email"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-email sd-button" href="mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Save%20the%20Date%21%20the%C2%A05th%20Lean%20Innovation%20Educators%20Summit&body=https%3A%2F%2Fsteveblank.com%2F2022%2F01%2F19%2Fsave-the-date-the-5th-lean-innovation-educators-summit%2F&share=email" target="_blank" title="Click to email a link to a friend" data-email-share-error-title="Do you have email set up?" data-email-share-error-text="If you're having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. 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