| business idea validation tool: Testing Business Ideas David J. Bland, Alexander Osterwalder, 2019-11-06 A practical guide to effective business model testing 7 out of 10 new products fail to deliver on expectations. Testing Business Ideas aims to reverse that statistic. In the tradition of Alex Osterwalder’s global bestseller Business Model Generation, this practical guide contains a library of hands-on techniques for rapidly testing new business ideas. Testing Business Ideas explains how systematically testing business ideas dramatically reduces the risk and increases the likelihood of success for any new venture or business project. It builds on the internationally popular Business Model Canvas and Value Proposition Canvas by integrating Assumptions Mapping and other powerful lean startup-style experiments. Testing Business Ideas uses an engaging 4-color format to: Increase the success of any venture and decrease the risk of wasting time, money, and resources on bad ideas Close the knowledge gap between strategy and experimentation/validation Identify and test your key business assumptions with the Business Model Canvas and Value Proposition Canvas A definitive field guide to business model testing, this book features practical tips for making major decisions that are not based on intuition and guesses. Testing Business Ideas shows leaders how to encourage an experimentation mindset within their organization and make experimentation a continuous, repeatable process. |
| business idea validation tool: Building Insanely Great Products David Fradin, 2016-11-30 Building Insanely Great Products: Some Products Fail, Many Succeed...This is their Story is dedicated to one goal: To help you learn how you can enhance the chances of product success and reduce product failure. Steve Jobs coined the term “Building Insanely Great Products” and this book with many real-life examples tells the story of what he meant by that phrase and how every organization can build insanely great products and services. Building Insanely Great Products covers the six keys to success, how to do market research, the importance of customer loyalty, innovation and design, using personas for development and not just marketing, determining the product’s value proposition, the correct way to prioritize product features, market sizing that works, market segmentation, product positioning, distribution strategy, product lifecycle framework and process, and the customer journey and digital transformation. As Steve Johnson, the grandfather of product management training says: “... we’ve learned that companies often don’t know why they succeed and why they fail. Many rely on luck; too many rely on “HIPPO”—the highest paid person's opinion. And if you don’t know why you succeed, you won’t know how to succeed again. |
| business idea validation tool: Hello, Startup Yevgeniy Brikman, 2015-10-21 This book is the Hello, World tutorial for building products, technologies, and teams in a startup environment. It's based on the experiences of the author, Yevgeniy (Jim) Brikman, as well as interviews with programmers from some of the most successful startups of the last decade, including Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, GitHub, Stripe, Instagram, AdMob, Pinterest, and many others. Hello, Startup is a practical, how-to guide that consists of three parts: Products, Technologies, and Teams. Although at its core, this is a book for programmers, by programmers, only Part II (Technologies) is significantly technical, while the rest should be accessible to technical and non-technical audiences alike. If you’re at all interested in startups—whether you’re a programmer at the beginning of your career, a seasoned developer bored with large company politics, or a manager looking to motivate your engineers—this book is for you. |
| business idea validation tool: Lean B2B Étienne Garbugli, 2022-03-22 Get from Idea to Product/Market Fit in B2B. The world has changed. Nowadays, there are more companies building B2B products than there’s ever been. Products are entering organizations top-down, middle-out, and bottom-up. Teams and managers control their budgets. Buyers have become savvier and more impatient. The case for the value of new innovations no longer needs to be made. Technology products get hired, and fired faster than ever before. The challenges have moved from building and validating products to gaining adoption in increasingly crowded and fragmented markets. This, requires a new playbook. The second edition of Lean B2B is the result of years of research into B2B entrepreneurship. It builds off the unique Lean B2B Methodology, which has already helped thousands of entrepreneurs and innovators around the world build successful businesses. In this new edition, you’ll learn: - Why companies seek out new products, and why they agree to buy from unproven vendors like startups - How to find early adopters, establish your credibility, and convince business stakeholders to work with you - What type of opportunities can increase the likelihood of building a product that finds adoption in businesses - How to learn from stakeholders, identify a great opportunity, and create a compelling value proposition - How to get initial validation, create a minimum viable product, and iterate until you're able to find product/market fit This second edition of Lean B2B will show you how to build the products that businesses need, want, buy, and adopt. |
| business idea validation tool: Design a Better Business Patrick van der Pijl, Justin Lokitz, Lisa Kay Solomon, 2016-09-21 This book stitches together a complete design journey from beginning to end in a way that you’ve likely never seen before, guiding readers (you) step-by-step in a practical way from the initial spark of an idea all the way to scaling it into a better business. Design a Better Business includes a comprehensive set of tools (over 20 total!) and skills that will help you harness opportunity from uncertainty by building the right team(s) and balancing your point of view against new findings from the outside world. This book also features over 50 case studies and real life examples from large corporations such as ING Bank, Audi, Autodesk, and Toyota Financial Services, to small startups, incubators, and social impact organizations, providing a behind the scenes look at the best practices and pitfalls to avoid. Also included are personal insights from thought leaders such as Steve Blank on innovation, Alex Osterwalder on business models, Nancy Duarte on storytelling, and Rob Fitzpatrick on questioning, among others. |
| business idea validation tool: The Lean Startup Eric Ries, 2011-09-13 Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business. The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute. Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs—in companies of all sizes—a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it’s too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever. |
| business idea validation tool: Business Model Generation Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, 2013-02-01 Business Model Generation is a handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers striving to defy outmoded business models and design tomorrow's enterprises. If your organization needs to adapt to harsh new realities, but you don't yet have a strategy that will get you out in front of your competitors, you need Business Model Generation. Co-created by 470 Business Model Canvas practitioners from 45 countries, the book features a beautiful, highly visual, 4-color design that takes powerful strategic ideas and tools, and makes them easy to implement in your organization. It explains the most common Business Model patterns, based on concepts from leading business thinkers, and helps you reinterpret them for your own context. You will learn how to systematically understand, design, and implement a game-changing business model--or analyze and renovate an old one. Along the way, you'll understand at a much deeper level your customers, distribution channels, partners, revenue streams, costs, and your core value proposition. Business Model Generation features practical innovation techniques used today by leading consultants and companies worldwide, including 3M, Ericsson, Capgemini, Deloitte, and others. Designed for doers, it is for those ready to abandon outmoded thinking and embrace new models of value creation: for executives, consultants, entrepreneurs, and leaders of all organizations. If you're ready to change the rules, you belong to the business model generation! |
| business idea validation tool: Digital Entrepreneurship Mariusz Soltanifar, Mathew Hughes, Lutz Göcke, 2020-11-13 This open access book explores the global challenges and experiences related to digital entrepreneurial activities, using carefully selected examples from leading companies and economies that shape world business today and tomorrow. Digital entrepreneurship and the companies steering it have an enormous global impact; they promise to transform the business world and change the way we communicate with each other. These companies use digitalization and artificial intelligence to enhance the quality of decisions and augment their business and customer operations. This book demonstrates how cloud services are continuing to evolve; how cryptocurrencies are traded in the banking industry; how platforms are created to commercialize business, and how, taken together, these developments provide new opportunities in the digitalized era. Further, it discusses a wide range of digital factors changing the way businesses operate, including artificial intelligence, chatbots, voice search, augmented and virtual reality, as well as cyber threats and data privacy management. “Digitalization mirrors the Industrial Revolution’s impact. This book provides a complement of perspectives on the opportunities emanating from such a deep seated change in our economy. It is a comprehensive collection of thought leadership mapped into a very useful framework. Scholars, digital entrepreneurs and practitioners will benefit from this timely work.” Gina O’Connor, Professor of Innovation Management at Babson College, USA “This book defines and delineates the requirements for companies to enable their businesses to succeed in a post-COVID19 world. This book deftly examines how to accomplish and achieve digital entrepreneurship by leveraging cloud computing, AI, IoT and other critical technologies. This is truly a unique “must-read” book because it goes beyond theory and provides practical examples.” Charlie Isaacs, CTO of Customer Connection at Salesforce.com, USA This book provides digital entrepreneurs useful guidance identifying, validating and building their venture. The international authors developed new perspectives on digital entrepreneurship that can support to create impact ventures.” Felix Staeritz, CEO FoundersLane, Member of the World Economic Forum Digital Leaders Board and bestselling author of FightBack, Germany |
| business idea validation tool: Value Proposition Design Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Gregory Bernarda, Alan Smith, 2015-01-28 The authors of the international bestseller Business Model Generation explain how to create value propositions customers can’t resist Value Proposition Design helps you tackle the core challenge of every business — creating compelling products and services customers want to buy. This highly practical book, paired with its online companion, will teach you the processes and tools you need to create products that sell. Using the same stunning visual format as the authors’ global bestseller, Business Model Generation, this sequel explains how to use the “Value Proposition Canvas” to design, test, create, and manage products and services customers actually want. Value Proposition Design is for anyone who has been frustrated by new product meetings based on hunches and intuitions; it’s for anyone who has watched an expensive new product launch fail in the market. The book will help you understand the patterns of great value propositions, get closer to customers, and avoid wasting time with ideas that won’t work. You’ll learn the simple process of designing and testing value propositions, that perfectly match customers’ needs and desires. In addition the book gives you exclusive access to an online companion on Strategyzer.com. You will be able to assess your work, learn from peers, and download pdfs, checklists, and more. Value Proposition Design is an essential companion to the ”Business Model Canvas” from Business Model Generation, a tool embraced globally by startups and large corporations such as MasterCard, 3M, Coca Cola, GE, Fujitsu, LEGO, Colgate-Palmolive, and many more. Value Proposition Design gives you a proven methodology for success, with value propositions that sell, embedded in profitable business models. |
| business idea validation tool: Impact Mapping Gojko Adzic, 2012-10 A practical guide to impact mapping, a simple yet incredibly effective method for collaborative strategic planning that helps organizations make an impact with software. |
| business idea validation tool: The Mom Test Rob Fitzpatrick, 2013-10-09 The Mom Test is a quick, practical guide that will save you time, money, and heartbreak. They say you shouldn't ask your mom whether your business is a good idea, because she loves you and will lie to you. This is technically true, but it misses the point. You shouldn't ask anyone if your business is a good idea. It's a bad question and everyone will lie to you at least a little . As a matter of fact, it's not their responsibility to tell you the truth. It's your responsibility to find it and it's worth doing right . Talking to customers is one of the foundational skills of both Customer Development and Lean Startup. We all know we're supposed to do it, but nobody seems willing to admit that it's easy to screw up and hard to do right. This book is going to show you how customer conversations go wrong and how you can do better. |
| business idea validation tool: Lean Customer Development Cindy Alvarez, 2017-08-30 How do you develop products that people will actually use and buy? This practical guide shows you how to validate product and company ideas through customer development research—before you waste months and millions on a product or service that no one needs or wants. With a combination of open-ended interviewing and fast and flexible research techniques, you’ll learn how your prospective customers behave, the problems they need to solve, and what frustrates and delights them. These insights may shake your assumptions, but they’ll help you reach the ah-ha! moments that inspire truly great products. Validate or invalidate your hypothesis by talking to the right people Learn how to conduct successful customer interviews play-by-play Detect a customer’s behaviors, pain points, and constraints Turn interview insights into Minimum Viable Products to validate what customers will use and buy Adapt customer development strategies for large companies, conservative industries, and existing products |
| business idea validation tool: Agile Processes, in Software Engineering, and Extreme Programming Helen Sharp, Tracy Hall, 2016-05-14 This book contains the refereed proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2016, held in Edinburgh, UK, in May 2016. While agile development has already become mainstream in industry, this field is still constantly evolving and continues to spur an enormous interest both in industry and academia. To this end, the XP conference attracts a large number of software practitioners and researchers, providing a rare opportunity for interaction between the two communities. The 14 full papers accepted for XP 2016 were selected from 42 submissions. Additionally, 11 experience reports (from 25 submissions) 5 empirical studies (out of 12 submitted) and 5 doctoral papers (from 6 papers submitted) were selected, and in each case the authors were shepherded by an experienced researcher. Generally, all of the submitted papers went through a rigorous peer-review process. |
| business idea validation tool: Will it Fly? Pat Flynn, 2016 The author shares a series of tests along with insights from entrepreneurs on how to investigate the viability of a new business idea before trying to launch the business. |
| business idea validation tool: An Elegant Puzzle Will Larson, 2019-05-20 A human-centric guide to solving complex problems in engineering management, from sizing teams to handling technical debt. There’s a saying that people don’t leave companies, they leave managers. Management is a key part of any organization, yet the discipline is often self-taught and unstructured. Getting to the good solutions for complex management challenges can make the difference between fulfillment and frustration for teams—and, ultimately, between the success and failure of companies. Will Larson’s An Elegant Puzzle focuses on the particular challenges of engineering management—from sizing teams to handling technical debt to performing succession planning—and provides a path to the good solutions. Drawing from his experience at Digg, Uber, and Stripe, Larson has developed a thoughtful approach to engineering management for leaders of all levels at companies of all sizes. An Elegant Puzzle balances structured principles and human-centric thinking to help any leader create more effective and rewarding organizations for engineers to thrive in. |
| business idea validation tool: Designing Your Life Bill Burnett, Dave Evans, 2016-09-20 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • At last, a book that shows you how to build—design—a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage • “Life has questions. They have answers.” —The New York Times Designers create worlds and solve problems using design thinking. Look around your office or home—at the tablet or smartphone you may be holding or the chair you are sitting in. Everything in our lives was designed by someone. And every design starts with a problem that a designer or team of designers seeks to solve. In this book, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who or where we are, what we do or have done for a living, or how young or old we are. The same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products, and spaces can be used to design and build your career and your life, a life of fulfillment and joy, constantly creative and productive, one that always holds the possibility of surprise. |
| business idea validation tool: Generating Product Ideas Artiom Dashinsky, 2020-08-01 Find ideas for your new next business, side hustle, or indie startup. Today every skill for building a product can be learnt online — coding, design, marketing — besides one: generating new product ideas. With this book, you will learn 17 actionable techniques for finding ideas to start your next profitable SaaS, physical, digital, services or content business. “The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas… — Linus Pauling, Nobel Prize laureate What will you learn from this book? - Find ideas — Discover actionable techniques to immediately find problems to build businesses around. - Notice opportunities — Learn the mental models that will help you to start noticing problems in the future and convert them into products later. - Find niche markets — Learn how to define the audiences that you’d enjoy serving and explore opportunities in their niches. - Prioritize ideas — Sort ideas with the biggest potential impact to fit your business and personal goals. |
| business idea validation tool: The Invincible Company Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Alan Smith, Frederic Etiemble, 2020-04-06 The long-awaited follow-up to the international bestsellers, Business Model Generation and Value Proposition Design Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneurs’ Business Model Canvas changed the way the world creates and plans new business models. It has been used by corporations and startups and consultants around the world and is taught in hundreds of universities. After years of researching how the world’s best companies develop, test, and scale new business models, the authors have produced their definitive work. The Invincible Company explains what every organization can learn from the business models of the world’s most exciting companies. The book explains how companies such as Amazon, IKEA, Airbnb, Microsoft, and Logitech, have been able to create immensely successful businesses and disrupt entire industries. At the core of these successes are not just great products and services, but profitable, innovative business models--and the ability to improve existing business models while consistently launching new ones. The Invincible Company presents practical new tools for measuring, managing, and accelerating innovation, and strategies for reducing risk when launching new business models. Serving as a blueprint for your growth strategy, The Invincible Company explains how to constantly stay ahead of your competition. In-depth chapters explain how to create new growth engines, change how products and services are created and delivered, extract maximum profit from each type of business model, and much more. New tools—such as the Business Model Portfolio Map, Innovation Metrics, Innovation Strategy Framework, and the Culture Map—enable readers to understand how to design invincible companies. The Invincible Company: ● Helps large and small companies build their growth strategy and manage their core simultaneously ● Explains the world's best modern and historic business models ● Provides tools to assess your business model, innovation readiness, and all of your innovation projects Presented in striking 4-color, and packed with practical visuals and tools, The Invincible Company is a must-have book for business leaders, entrepreneurs, and innovation professionals. |
| business idea validation tool: Sprint Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky, Braden Kowitz, 2016-03-08 From inside Google Ventures, a unique five-day process for solving tough problems, proven at thousands of companies in mobile, e-commerce, healthcare, finance, and more. Entrepreneurs and leaders face big questions every day: What’s the most important place to focus your effort, and how do you start? What will your idea look like in real life? How many meetings and discussions does it take before you can be sure you have the right solution? Now there’s a surefire way to answer these important questions: the Design Sprint, created at Google by Jake Knapp. This method is like fast-forwarding into the future, so you can see how customers react before you invest all the time and expense of creating your new product, service, or campaign. In a Design Sprint, you take a small team, clear your schedules for a week, and rapidly progress from problem, to prototype, to tested solution using the step-by-step five-day process in this book. A practical guide to answering critical business questions, Sprint is a book for teams of any size, from small startups to Fortune 100s, from teachers to nonprofits. It can replace the old office defaults with a smarter, more respectful, and more effective way of solving problems that brings out the best contributions of everyone on the team—and helps you spend your time on work that really matters. |
| business idea validation tool: Running Lean Ash Maurya, 2012-02-28 Offers a systematic approach to product/market fit, discussing customer involvment, optimal time to obtain funding, and when to change the plan. |
| business idea validation tool: The Four Steps to the Epiphany Steve Blank, 2020-03-17 The bestselling classic that launched 10,000 startups and new corporate ventures - The Four Steps to the Epiphany is one of the most influential and practical business books of all time. The Four Steps to the Epiphany launched the Lean Startup approach to new ventures. It was the first book to offer that startups are not smaller versions of large companies and that new ventures are different than existing ones. Startups search for business models while existing companies execute them. The book offers the practical and proven four-step Customer Development process for search and offers insight into what makes some startups successful and leaves others selling off their furniture. Rather than blindly execute a plan, The Four Steps helps uncover flaws in product and business plans and correct them before they become costly. Rapid iteration, customer feedback, testing your assumptions are all explained in this book. Packed with concrete examples of what to do, how to do it and when to do it, the book will leave you with new skills to organize sales, marketing and your business for success. If your organization is starting a new venture, and you're thinking how to successfully organize sales, marketing and business development you need The Four Steps to the Epiphany. Essential reading for anyone starting something new. The Four Steps to the Epiphany was originally published by K&S Ranch Publishing Inc. and is now available from Wiley. The cover, design, and content are the same as the prior release and should not be considered a new or updated product. |
| business idea validation tool: The Lean Product Playbook Dan Olsen, 2015-05-21 The missing manual on how to apply Lean Startup to build products that customers love The Lean Product Playbook is a practical guide to building products that customers love. Whether you work at a startup or a large, established company, we all know that building great products is hard. Most new products fail. This book helps improve your chances of building successful products through clear, step-by-step guidance and advice. The Lean Startup movement has contributed new and valuable ideas about product development and has generated lots of excitement. However, many companies have yet to successfully adopt Lean thinking. Despite their enthusiasm and familiarity with the high-level concepts, many teams run into challenges trying to adopt Lean because they feel like they lack specific guidance on what exactly they should be doing. If you are interested in Lean Startup principles and want to apply them to develop winning products, this book is for you. This book describes the Lean Product Process: a repeatable, easy-to-follow methodology for iterating your way to product-market fit. It walks you through how to: Determine your target customers Identify underserved customer needs Create a winning product strategy Decide on your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Design your MVP prototype Test your MVP with customers Iterate rapidly to achieve product-market fit This book was written by entrepreneur and Lean product expert Dan Olsen whose experience spans product management, UX design, coding, analytics, and marketing across a variety of products. As a hands-on consultant, he refined and applied the advice in this book as he helped many companies improve their product process and build great products. His clients include Facebook, Box, Hightail, Epocrates, and Medallia. Entrepreneurs, executives, product managers, designers, developers, marketers, analysts and anyone who is passionate about building great products will find The Lean Product Playbook an indispensable, hands-on resource. |
| business idea validation tool: The Lean Marketplace Juho Makkonen, Cristobal Gracia, 2018-02-23 Inspired by the success of platforms such as Airbnb, Etsy or Fiverr? Want to know how to build an online marketplace business? This is the book for you. In this step by step guide, we will go through everything you need to know about developing your idea into a sustainable business, offering lots of practical advice and actionable ideas along the way. This book is the result of two experts putting almost two decades of experience together, in order to create a repeatable method for creating a successful online marketplace. The applicable tactics and techniques can be studied in advance, helping you avoid the most common pitfalls. It's a handbook for anyone building an online marketplace. The same methods will apply whether your organization is a startup, a cooperative, a non-profit, or a big brand. Not every marketplace will be as big as Airbnb and Uber, but we believe there are thousands of marketplace ideas out there that can make for great, sustainable businesses. With the help of this book, you're one step closer to building the next one. Critical acclaim Juho and Cristóbal have written a practical in-the-weeds guide on marketplace execution that will prove invaluable for all entrepreneurs looking to start a marketplace. No fluff, just actionable ideas. - Sangeet Paul Choudary, best-selling author of Platform Revolution and Platform Scale Building marketplaces can be hard. The Lean Marketplace is a very useful step-by-step guide to help entrepreneurs think through the challenges and solutions to create the next Uber or Airbnb. - Boris Wertz, Founder and General Partner, Version One Ventures Must read for every marketplace entrepreneur. I'm going to ask everyone in our team to read this book. - Bram de Zwart, Co-founder and CEO, 3D Hubs As I'm friends with both authors, I know first hand that the information in their book is hard won from long experience helping dozens of marketplaces succeed and consulting the top experts from around the world. However, the quality and comprehensiveness of the content speaks for itself. It covers all the essentials of growing an online marketplace, and in the most straightforward way possible. It is an impressively practical, must read resource for any current or aspiring marketplace entrepreneur. I can't recommend it highly enough, but please see for yourself. - Neal Gorenflo, Co-founder of Shareable The essential guide to building an essential marketplace. - Tristan Pollock, Co-founder, Storefront, Partner, 500 Startups Reading Juho's and Cristobal's advice online before launching our platform helped us save so much time and avoid the most common mistakes. If you're considering building a marketplace business, read this book first. Seriously. - Agne Milukaite, Co-founder and CEO, Cycle.land Envisioning, validating, building and growing a marketplace is no small challenge: the most important aspect to nailing this challenge down is all about avoiding losing time and energy in the myriad of wrong directions that can come up your way. This book is an essential guide, the lifeboat for the marketplace founder that faces the ocean of bootstrapping. - Simone Cicero, platform strategist and consultant, creator of Platform Design Toolkit I bootstrapped my marketplace business from launch to profitability in 6 months. Reading this book will help you do the same. - Mike Williams, CEO and Founder, Studiotime |
| business idea validation tool: Well-Designed Jon Kolko, 2014-10-28 From Design Thinking to Design Doing Innovators today are told to run loose and think lean in order to fail fast and succeed sooner. But in a world obsessed with the new, where cool added features often trump actual customer needs, it’s the consumer who suffers. In our quest to be more agile, we end up creating products that underwhelm. So how does a company like Nest, creator of the mundane thermostat, earn accolades like “beautiful” and “revolutionary” and a $3.2 billion Google buyout? What did Nest do differently to create a household product that people speak of with love? Nest, and companies like it, understand that emotional connection is critical to product development. And they use a clear, repeatable design process that focuses squarely on consumer engagement rather than piling on features for features’ sake. In this refreshingly jargon-free and practical book, product design expert Jon Kolko maps out this process, demonstrating how it will help you and your team conceive and build successful, emotionally resonant products again and again. The key, says Kolko, is empathy. You need to deeply understand customer needs and feelings, and this understanding must be reflected in the product. In successive chapters of the book, we see how leading companies use a design process of storytelling and iteration that evokes positive emotions, changes behavior, and creates deep engagement. Here are the four key steps: 1. Determine a product-market fit by seeking signals from communities of users. 2. Identify behavioral insights by conducting ethnographic research. 3. Sketch a product strategy by synthesizing complex research data into simple insights. 4. Polish the product details using visual representations to simplify complex ideas. Kolko walks the reader through each step, sharing eye-opening insights from his fifteen-year career in product design along the way. Whether you’re a designer, a product developer, or a marketer thinking about your company’s next offering, this book will forever change the way you think about—and create—successful products. |
| business idea validation tool: Disciplined Entrepreneurship Bill Aulet, 2013-08-12 24 Steps to Success! Disciplined Entrepreneurship will change the way you think about starting a company. Many believe that entrepreneurship cannot be taught, but great entrepreneurs aren’t born with something special – they simply make great products. This book will show you how to create a successful startup through developing an innovative product. It breaks down the necessary processes into an integrated, comprehensive, and proven 24-step framework that any industrious person can learn and apply. You will learn: Why the “F” word – focus – is crucial to a startup’s success Common obstacles that entrepreneurs face – and how to overcome them How to use innovation to stand out in the crowd – it’s not just about technology Whether you’re a first-time or repeat entrepreneur, Disciplined Entrepreneurship gives you the tools you need to improve your odds of making a product people want. Author Bill Aulet is the managing director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship as well as a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. For more please visit http://disciplinedentrepreneurship.com/ |
| business idea validation tool: Teaching Entrepreneurship Heidi M. Neck, Patricia G. Greene, Candida G. Brush, 2014-06-27 Teaching Entrepreneurship advocates teaching entrepreneurship using a portfolio of practices, including play, empathy, creation, experimentation, and reflection. Together these practices help students develop the competency to think and act entrepreneu |
| business idea validation tool: Start Up Nation Jeffrey Sloan, Richard Sloan, 2005 A guide to starting a profitable business includes advice, tips, and strategies for assessing one's tolerance for risk, taking advantage of one's skills, avoiding common mistakes, and focusing on what one loves to do. |
| business idea validation tool: Escaping the Build Trap Melissa Perri, 2018-11-01 To stay competitive in today’s market, organizations need to adopt a culture of customer-centric practices that focus on outcomes rather than outputs. Companies that live and die by outputs often fall into the build trap, cranking out features to meet their schedule rather than the customer’s needs. In this book, Melissa Perri explains how laying the foundation for great product management can help companies solve real customer problems while achieving business goals. By understanding how to communicate and collaborate within a company structure, you can create a product culture that benefits both the business and the customer. You’ll learn product management principles that can be applied to any organization, big or small. In five parts, this book explores: Why organizations ship features rather than cultivate the value those features represent How to set up a product organization that scales How product strategy connects a company’s vision and economic outcomes back to the product activities How to identify and pursue the right opportunities for producing value through an iterative product framework How to build a culture focused on successful outcomes over outputs |
| business idea validation tool: High-Impact Tools for Teams Stefano Mastrogiacomo, Alexander Osterwalder, 2021-03-09 Take advantage of a powerful visual management tool for teams as you work together and deliver great results. It's been used by thousands of teams for project success! 59% of U.S. workers say that communication is their team's biggest obstacle to success, followed by accountability at 29% (Atlassian). High-Impact Tools for Teams explains a simple, powerful tool that helps team leaders and members align and get clarity on exactly who is responsible for each part of the team's most important activities and projects. The tool is complemented by 4 trust add-ons that help teams build trust and increase psychological safety, so every member can be confident in sharing ideas or concerns about obstacles the team may face. It's a proven tool for project teams, based on years of research, and thousands of teams are already using the Team Alignment Map to run effective get-to-action meetings, give projects a good start and de-silo organizations. Co-author Alex Osterwalder is the international best-selling author who co-created the Business Model Canvas, a strategic management tool used by 1 million+ industry leaders globally. Plan as a team and know who does what Uncover and proactively remove the most likely obstacles to any project Boost team member contributions Run more effective team meetings Get more successful projects With the guidance of High-Impact Tools for Teams, you can be better prepared as a team leader or team member to plan effectively, reduce risks, and collaborate with others. Your team will be accountable and ready to deliver results! |
| business idea validation tool: The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression (2nd Edition) Becca Puglisi, Angela Ackerman, 2019-02-19 The bestselling Emotion Thesaurus, often hailed as “the gold standard for writers” and credited with transforming how writers craft emotion, has now been expanded to include 56 new entries! One of the biggest struggles for writers is how to convey emotion to readers in a unique and compelling way. When showing our characters’ feelings, we often use the first idea that comes to mind, and they end up smiling, nodding, and frowning too much. If you need inspiration for creating characters’ emotional responses that are personalized and evocative, this ultimate show-don’t-tell guide for emotion can help. It includes: • Body language cues, thoughts, and visceral responses for over 130 emotions that cover a range of intensity from mild to severe, providing innumerable options for individualizing a character’s reactions • A breakdown of the biggest emotion-related writing problems and how to overcome them • Advice on what should be done before drafting to make sure your characters’ emotions will be realistic and consistent • Instruction for how to show hidden feelings and emotional subtext through dialogue and nonverbal cues • And much more! The Emotion Thesaurus, in its easy-to-navigate list format, will inspire you to create stronger, fresher character expressions and engage readers from your first page to your last. |
| business idea validation tool: Dare to Lead Brené Brown, 2018-10-09 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Brené Brown has taught us what it means to dare greatly, rise strong, and brave the wilderness. Now, based on new research conducted with leaders, change makers, and culture shifters, she’s showing us how to put those ideas into practice so we can step up and lead. Don’t miss the five-part HBO Max docuseries Brené Brown: Atlas of the Heart! NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BLOOMBERG Leadership is not about titles, status, and wielding power. A leader is anyone who takes responsibility for recognizing the potential in people and ideas, and has the courage to develop that potential. When we dare to lead, we don’t pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don’t see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when we share it with others. We don’t avoid difficult conversations and situations; we lean into vulnerability when it’s necessary to do good work. But daring leadership in a culture defined by scarcity, fear, and uncertainty requires skill-building around traits that are deeply and uniquely human. The irony is that we’re choosing not to invest in developing the hearts and minds of leaders at the exact same time as we’re scrambling to figure out what we have to offer that machines and AI can’t do better and faster. What can we do better? Empathy, connection, and courage, to start. Four-time #1 New York Times bestselling author Brené Brown has spent the past two decades studying the emotions and experiences that give meaning to our lives, and the past seven years working with transformative leaders and teams spanning the globe. She found that leaders in organizations ranging from small entrepreneurial startups and family-owned businesses to nonprofits, civic organizations, and Fortune 50 companies all ask the same question: How do you cultivate braver, more daring leaders, and how do you embed the value of courage in your culture? In this new book, Brown uses research, stories, and examples to answer these questions in the no-BS style that millions of readers have come to expect and love. Brown writes, “One of the most important findings of my career is that daring leadership is a collection of four skill sets that are 100 percent teachable, observable, and measurable. It’s learning and unlearning that requires brave work, tough conversations, and showing up with your whole heart. Easy? No. Because choosing courage over comfort is not always our default. Worth it? Always. We want to be brave with our lives and our work. It’s why we’re here.” Whether you’ve read Daring Greatly and Rising Strong or you’re new to Brené Brown’s work, this book is for anyone who wants to step up and into brave leadership. |
| business idea validation tool: Drop Dead Healthy A. J. Jacobs, 2012-04-10 From the bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically and The Know-It-All comes the true and truly hilarious story of one person’s quest to become the healthiest man in the world. Hospitalized with a freak case of tropical pneumonia, goaded by his wife telling him, “I don’t want to be a widow at forty-five,” and ashamed of a middle-aged body best described as “a python that swallowed a goat,” A.J. Jacobs felt compelled to change his ways and get healthy. And he didn’t want only to lose weight, or finish a triathlon, or lower his cholesterol. His ambitions were far greater: maximal health from head to toe. The task was epic. He consulted an army of experts— sleep consultants and sex clinicians, nutritionists and dermatologists. He subjected himself to dozens of different workouts—from Strollercize classes to Finger Fitness sessions, from bouldering with cavemen to a treadmill desk. And he took in a cartload of diets: raw foods, veganism, high protein, calorie restriction, extreme chewing, and dozens more. He bought gadgets and helmets, earphones and juicers. He poked and he pinched. He counted and he measured. The story of his transformation is not only brilliantly entertaining, but it just may be the healthiest book ever written. It will make you laugh until your sides split and endorphins flood your bloodstream. It will alter the contours of your brain, imprinting you with better habits of hygiene and diet. It will move you emotionally and get you moving physically in surprising ways. And it will give you occasion to reflect on the body’s many mysteries and the ultimate pursuit of health: a well-lived life. |
| business idea validation tool: Double Double Cameron Herold, 2011-03-10 A one hundred percent proven plan for one hundred percent growth. |
| business idea validation tool: Software Business Sami Hyrynsalmi, Mari Suoranta, Anh Nguyen-Duc, Pasi Tyrväinen, Pekka Abrahamsson, 2019-11-06 This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Software Business, ICSOB 2019, held in Jyväskylä, Finland, in November 2019. On the occasion of its tenth anniversary the conference theme this year was “The First Decade and Beyond” and focused on the development during the past decade, addressing the future of software-intensive business as well as studies on new and emerging ideas. The 18 full papers and 10 short papers presented together with 3 invited talks, 6 emerging research papers and a tutorial were carefully reviewed and selected from 52 submissions. They are organized in the following topical sections: software ecosystems; management of software products; continual improvement and product development; impacts of digitalization; software business education; software startups and digital business. |
| business idea validation tool: Rich20something Daniel DiPiazza, 2017 As the founder of Rich20something.com, Daniel DiPiazza has helped thousands break out of their daily grinds, build businesses they care about, and achieve more sucsess than they ever imagined --Back cover. |
| business idea validation tool: The Startup Owner's Manual Steve Blank, Bob Dorf, 2020-03-17 More than 100,000 entrepreneurs rely on this book. The National Science Foundation pays hundreds of startup teams each year to follow the process outlined in the book, and it's taught at Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia and more than 100 other leading universities worldwide. Why? The Startup Owner's Manual guides you, step-by-step, as you put the Customer Development process to work. This method was created by renowned Silicon Valley startup expert Steve Blank, co-creator with Eric Ries of the Lean Startup movement and tested and refined by him for more than a decade. This 608-page how-to guide includes over 100 charts, graphs, and diagrams, plus 77 valuable checklists that guide you as you drive your company toward profitability. It will help you: Avoid the 9 deadly sins that destroy startups' chances for success Use the Customer Development method to bring your business idea to life Incorporate the Business Model Canvas as the organizing principle for startup hypotheses Identify your customers and determine how to get, keep and grow customers profitably Compute how you'll drive your startup to repeatable, scalable profits. The Startup Owners Manual was originally published by K&S Ranch Publishing Inc. and is now available from Wiley. The cover, design, and content are the same as the prior release and should not be considered a new or updated product. |
| business idea validation tool: Software Business Arto Ojala, Helena Holmström Olsson, Karl Werder, 2017-10-20 This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Software Business, ICSOB 2017, held in Essen, Germany, in June 2017. The 11 full papers and 5 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 30 submissions. They were organized in topical sections named: software startups and platform governance; software business development; software ecosystems and App stores. |
| business idea validation tool: Start Small, Stay Small Rob Walling, 2010 Start Small, Stay Small is a step-by-step guide to launching a self-funded startup. If you're a desktop, mobile or web developer, this book is your blueprint to getting your startup off the ground with no outside investment.This book intentionally avoids topics restricted to venture-backed startups such as: honing your investment pitch, securing funding, and figuring out how to use the piles of cash investors keep placing in your lap.This book assumes: You don't have $6M of investor funds sitting in your bank account You're not going to relocate to the handful of startup hubs in the world You're not going to work 70 hour weeks for low pay with the hope of someday making millions from stock options There's nothing wrong with pursuing venture funding and attempting to grow fast like Amazon, Google, Twitter, and Facebook. It just so happened that most people are not in a place to do this.Start Small, Stay Small also focuses on the single most important element of a startup that most developers avoid: marketing. There are many great resources for learning how to write code, organize source control, or connect to a database. This book does not cover the technical aspects developers already know or can learn elsewhere. It focuses on finding your idea, testing it before you build, and getting it into the hands of your customers. |
| business idea validation tool: UNSCRIPTED MJ DeMarco, 2017-05-23 What if Life Wasn't About 50 Years of Wage-Slavery, Paying Bills and then Dying? Tired of sleepwalking through a mediocre life bribed by mindless video-gaming, redemptive weekends, and a scant paycheck from a soul-suffocating job? Welcome to the SCRIPTED club— where membership is neither perceived or consented. The fact is, ever since you’ve been old enough to sit obediently in a classroom, you have been culturally engineered for servitude, unwittingly enslaved into a Machiavellian system where illusionary rules go unchallenged, sanctified traditions go unquestioned, and lifelong dreams go unfulfilled. As a result, your life is hijacked and marginalised into debt, despair, and dependence. Life's death sentence becomes the daily curse of the trivial and mundane. Fun fades. Dreams die. Don't let life's consolation prize become a car and a weekend. Recapture what is yours and make a revolutionary repossession of life-and-liberty through the pursuit of entrepreneurship. A paradigm shift isn't needed—the damn paradigm needs to be thrown-out altogether. The truth is, if you blindly follow conventional wisdom pushed by conventional people living conventional lives, can you expect to be anything but conventional? Rewrite life’s script: ditch the job, give Wall Street the bird, and escape the insanity of trading your life away for a paycheck and an elderly promise called retirement. UNSCRIPT today and start leading life— instead of life leading you. |
| business idea validation tool: If You Can Talk, You Can Write Joel Saltzman, 2014-09-01 When we talk, we tell stories and present ideas—rarely with much anxiety. But think about writing something and panic sets in. Overcome this crippling response by learning how to “talk” on paper. Joel Saltzman tells it like it is—with compassion, humor, and the “uncommon wisdom” of famous writers, artists, and musicians. Based on his popular workshop for the UCLA Writers’ Program, this is a program with proven results. You’ll discover how to: >Conquer the killer P’s—Perfectionism, Paralysis, and Procrastination. >Silence your inner critic. (“Shut up, already. I’m trying to write!”) >Stop worrying about the “rules” of grammar. >Get inspired when you don’t feel inspired. >Write with conviction, not apology! This best selling book gives you the daring and freedom to “talk” on paper without worrying whether it’s good or bad or what it’s going to “be”—the kind of writing that’s creative, energetic and, most of all, truly your own. |
BUSINESS | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
BUSINESS definition: 1. the activity of buying and selling goods and services: 2. a particular company that buys and….
VENTURE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
VENTURE definition: 1. a new activity, usually in business, that involves risk or uncertainty: 2. to risk going….
ENTERPRISE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
ENTERPRISE definition: 1. an organization, especially a business, or a difficult and important plan, especially one that….
INCUMBENT | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
INCUMBENT definition: 1. officially having the named position: 2. to be necessary for someone: 3. the person who has or….
AD HOC | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
AD HOC definition: 1. made or happening only for a particular purpose or need, not planned before it happens: 2. made….
LEVERAGE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
LEVERAGE definition: 1. the action or advantage of using a lever: 2. power to influence people and get the results you….
ENTREPRENEUR | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
ENTREPRENEUR definition: 1. someone who starts their own business, especially when this involves seeing a new opportunity….
CULTIVATE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
CULTIVATE definition: 1. to prepare land and grow crops on it, or to grow a particular crop: 2. to try to develop and….
EQUITY | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
EQUITY definition: 1. the value of a company, divided into many equal parts owned by the shareholders, or one of the….
LIAISE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
LIAISE definition: 1. to speak to people in other organizations, etc. in order to work with them or exchange….
BUSINESS | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
BUSINESS definition: 1. the activity of buying and selling goods and services: 2. a particular company that buys and….
VENTURE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
VENTURE definition: 1. a new activity, usually in business, that involves risk or uncertainty: 2. to risk going….
ENTERPRISE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
ENTERPRISE definition: 1. an organization, especially a business, or a difficult and important plan, especially one that….
INCUMBENT | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
INCUMBENT definition: 1. officially having the named position: 2. to be necessary for someone: 3. the person who has or….
AD HOC | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
AD HOC definition: 1. made or happening only for a particular purpose or need, not planned before it happens: 2. made….
LEVERAGE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
LEVERAGE definition: 1. the action or advantage of using a lever: 2. power to influence people and get the results you….
ENTREPRENEUR | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
ENTREPRENEUR definition: 1. someone who starts their own business, especially when this involves seeing a new opportunity….
CULTIVATE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
CULTIVATE definition: 1. to prepare land and grow crops on it, or to grow a particular crop: 2. to try to develop and….
EQUITY | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
EQUITY definition: 1. the value of a company, divided into many equal parts owned by the shareholders, or one of the….
LIAISE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
LIAISE definition: 1. to speak to people in other organizations, etc. in order to work with them or exchange….
