Unleash Business Creativity©: The Way to Innovation
Creativity is connecting the dots from already-existing fields to generate cross-conceptual opportunities. Innovation is the process of making creativity come to life. In the start up landscape, creativity and innovation are the epicenters of the system. The lean process of establishing start-ups has been highly tested and widespread in recent times. Failing fast in order to learn fast is an incited-upon practice, as opposed to a necessary evil. The Unleash Business Creativity™️ framework of start-up development has been taught to me by eng. prof. Gianfranco Scalabrini during one of his paramount university courses on the topic of lean start up development in which I have been a student (2021). This article and the supporting Notion template would not exist without prof. Scalabrini's teachings.
According to the Unleash Business Creativity framework, there are 5 major steps in the lean advancement of a start up, each one composed of actionable sub-items. These are:
Brainstorming
Pre-Feasibility Analysis
Opportunity Scoring
MVP & Lean Testing
Iteration, Business Model, Investor Pitch & ensuing steps
There is a comprehensive Notion template accompanying this article. You can find it here, at the end of the post, and in the body of the article sometimes too. The template is composed of every actionable step of the framework for mindful start-up ideation. Please be aware that the Notion template is priced at 6$, which I decided to be a reasonable and right price for it, after careful consideration of the potential value it can deliver.
Brainstorming
The first step in the Unleash Business Creativity framework is brainstorming. Brainstorming refers to the activity of collecting ideas. The brainstorming phase of a project is one that is free from judgment and focuses instead on the mere collection of ideas stemming from the observation of the world around us. Any idea is a valuable one at this stage. When in a group, the process of brainstorming would take place in this fashion: first, everyone brainstorms and writes down their ideas individually; after a brief break, every idea is quickly presented to the crowd, with one individual being responsible for writing down ideas names and short summaries on a centralized document; as some ideas are likely going to be very similar, participants can build on each other's ideas in an iterative process during the collection stage. No judgment is applied. Once all the ideas are orderly written down, it is time to allocate each one of them to a pre-defined category. Ideas buckets may include (but are not limited to):
Lifestyle
E-commerce
Healthcare
Education
Hospitality and Tourism
Assigning each idea to one specific bucket makes us rationalize and understand the idea in its essence, because we need to pick one category, hence defining what the idea is actually about, in our mind at that point in time. This provides a more clear understanding of each idea.
Pre-Feasibility Analysis
Once the brainstorming phase is concluded, it is time to move on to the second step of Unleash Business Creativity: pre-feasibility analysis. This is a first great filter that separates the wheat from the chaff. While the brainstorming phase is completely free from judgment, the pre-feasibility analysis is the process where ideas are tested (at a high level and roughly) against a step-by-step reality check. At this stage, paying close attention to not fall prey to cognitive biases is pivotal. It is incredibly easy to be completely hooked by our own ego and cognitive biases just for the sake of sticking to our ideas. This is counterproductive and naive. The purpose of building start-ups, or businesses, or intra-company innovations is not to be recognized as the one who came up with the idea. It is not fame. The purpose of building innovation is to contribute to a higher why embedded in our team and the organization as a whole. It is to provide authentic value to the target consumers because we see an opportunity due to unserved or poorly-served needs and wants. Some of the most prominent cognitive biases we need to guard ourselves against include: confirmation bias; sunk cost fallacy; self-serving bias; endowment effect. I find this video from the Google UX Design Certificate (the final section of the video) a valuable source for learning more about cognitive biases in innovation (the video is specific to UX design, but many of those biases apply to the context of innovation too).
Pre-feasibility analysis is founded on 3 core principles:
Distinctiveness: how does this idea (and related possible product/service) differ from existing similar initiatives (whether present now or in the past, and if existing)? If there have been failed similar initiatives in the past, what would make this idea succeed now, and why?
Actionability: how feasible is the idea, actually? What technological, legal, or physical constraints are there?
Sustainability: does the forecasted impact of the idea significantly exceed the operational and sunk costs of the initiative?
The process of pre-feasibility analysis is composed of 6 main areas to examine:
Stakeholders identification: In this step, you identify the whole stakeholder base that would be involved in the idea. Stakeholders are all those individuals who are impacted in some shape or form by your project. This may include suppliers, customers, investors, associations, specific professionals part of an industry, partner organizations, etc. Here is a Ted Talk on stakeholder theory by its inventor: Edward R. Freeman.
Jobs to be done: Jobs to be Done (JTBD) can be vivid or latent. These involve the specific needs the idea will solve for each stakeholder. At least 5 jobs to be done must be identified in order for an idea to be potentially valuable. These can be functional jobs (e.g. thirst), emotional (involving feelings), emotional-social (how we want to be perceived by others). Here is an HBR article on JTBD.
Similar initiatives & GAP analysis: In this phase, we aim at examining the reference target, value proposition, performance, possible reasons for success or failure. Furthermore, we want to identify the characteristics that make the idea stand out from competitors (distinctiveness). The Wikipedia page on GAP analysis and its origins here.
Constraints are the practical limits of the application of the idea. There are 3 main types of constraints: physical (e.g. technology not available), legislative (make sure to understand regulations and relations with stakeholders), cultural (keep in mind the cultural values of every stakeholder in order to pick the right value proposition).
Addressable market: At this stage of the pre-feasibility analysis, we aim at asking ourselves: who could our clients be? This is the market that is likely to be reached through the idea (and hypothesized product/service). In this analysis, you want to consider the volume of the target customers, the market share, the average price of the hypothesized idea. Once estimated, multiply the resulting numbers to get a high-level visualization of the addressable market. Here is an article to dive deeper into the total addressable market calculation.
High-level revenues and costs: this is the time to work with some hypothetical numbers as for revenues and costs, at a high level (not precisely).
Revenues = addressable market + any other possible sources of revenue (e.g. ads)
Costs = operating costs + cost of personnel + mktg and ads expenses + GA costs + initial investments (e.g. website, design, tech development, etc.)
Be aware of the overconfidence bias.
Opportunity Scoring
Right after conducting a thorough pre-feasibility analysis (which acts as a first great filter to discard those ideas that are not feasible), the idea moves to the next step of the process: opportunity scoring. The jobs to be done (JTBD) specified during the previous phase are foundational for conducting the opportunity scoring analysis. Each job to be done needs to be dissected and clarified now, understanding what is truly the essence of the idea, and whether or not there are real opportunities out there. An opportunity exists when needs are not served, badly served, or overserved. Focusing on the wrong jobs to be done can be a complete waste of time and resources. The key principle behind the opportunity scoring step of Unleash Business Creativity is that it is stakeholders themselves that will express their opinions on the jobs to be done we identified. This is a powerful characteristic here. What we think is important to stakeholders may actually be irrelevant to them. By carefully and unbiasedly researching how and what stakeholders believe, we can get one step closer to the objective truth. Jobs to be done are usually targeted at 3 areas of improvement: speed, quality, efficiency. In the first stage of opportunity scoring, we need to frame each job to be done in the following way (as for sentence structure):
After clarifying jobs to be done in our own head, it is now time to test them on real stakeholders by developing a research survey. The survey is not focused on the product. It merely looks at the needs of stakeholders (jobs to be done). There is no promise or priming effect, but only a genuine curiosity to understand stakeholders' needs. There are 3 main means of carrying out the survey: one-on-one interviews or focus groups; phone interviews; online surveys. You need to target the survey to the identified stakeholders, as opposed to everyone in the population. The sample studied must be statistically significant. Try to reach as many statistically significant stakeholders as possible in order to hedge the possible inaccuracy of small samples. The way you carry out the survey is highly dependent on the target stakeholders the idea aims at serving. Generally speaking, if the targeted market is part of the organization world (B2B), one-on-one brief interviews (e.g. by phone) might be the most suitable option. This first needs-based market research must ask participants to rate the importance and current level of satisfaction for each job to be done, on a scale from 1 to 5. Use the model presented above (sentence structure) to frame survey questions.
The second main stage of opportunity scoring is the complete analysis of the data gathered and the calculation of opportunity scores. This step is crucial in order to comprehend which jobs to be done are to be discarded, and which ones must be kept due to their importance for stakeholders. You can find a thorough explanation of how to carry out the scoring process of your data in the Unleash Business Creativity Notion template. The opportunity score is calculated based on the importance and current satisfaction levels for each job to be done. The formula is the following: O = I + (I-S), where O is opportunity scoring, I is 'importance', and S is 'satisfaction'. In the template, you can find a Notion formula calculating every opportunity score automatically. As a rule of thumb, you want to discard those JTBD whose opportunity score is lower than 11.
MVP & Lean Testing
If the idea has made it through the opportunity scoring stage, and there are some specific jobs to be done that have been deemed truly important for stakeholders, the ensuing step in the Unleash Business Creativity process is all about the development of an MVP and a Testing protocol. You now go from the understanding of needs and jobs to be done to the development of the solution to those. MVP stands for "minimum viable product". An MVP is different from a pilot product. The MVP is a business prototype of your idea (e.g. a video, brochure, design concept, early-stage app, etc.). This means that the MVP does not have to be the complete product. The aim of the MVP is to quickly gather interest and provide a concrete demonstration of the idea. MVPs are iterative. Feedback from early adopters is key at this stage, in order to work on honing the product/service. Lean testing is an agile way of "testing the waters". Its aim is to understand whether your concept has some validity. Lean testing is a bottom-up, participative approach to testing. The testing protocol is a detailed strategic plan for how to carry out the lean testing process. You can find a detailed outline of how to design and develop an MVP and a clear testing protocol in the Notion template. At the core of a testing protocol, there is all the information everyone on the team must know in order to test the MVP on the market. Variables such as possible challenges arising, resources to involve, and KPIs that define success are at the foundation of the testing protocol.
A Key Principle: Iteration
Iterate. Iterate. Iterate. Iteration is a fundamental principle at the basis of the Unleash Business Creativity framework of start-up (or innovation) development. This is the case in every lean model of idea development. On account of the highly participative nature of the Unleash Business Creativity infrastructure, we cannot remain fixated on our own belief merely for the sake of passion and perseverance. If there is sufficient data gathered, and the data are in contrast with our preconceived notions, we need to adapt quickly, or risk death. Iteration is exactly this: the lean approach to continuous, cyclical improvement, or Kaizen, as people at Toyota would probably put it.
The Next Steps
The Unleash Business Creativity framework as presented in this article and the dedicated Notion template goes a rather long way in the quest for business establishment. After the development and successful testing of the MVP, the following steps might include an investor pitch and devising a business model. Armed with real-world data and having followed an evidence-based path to start-up development, those next steps are much more a natural consequence of the process rather than insurmountable obstacles. The Unleash Business Creativity framework enables you to provide tangible proof of the functioning of the initiative, which was once a mere idea, now possibly turned into a business.
Thanks to eng. prof. Scalabrini for teaching this framework in his Strategic Management course. All the credit for the knowledge shared here goes to him.
