CitySpark Seminars

Week 1

Validating your business idea

Today’s session

•  Recap and review

•  Understand what you need to do to be successful in stage two of the competition

•  Introduce the concept of Customer Development

•  Begin to apply it to your idea/vision

RECAP

A business design and doing competition

Having ideas…

& making them happen!

Academic excellence for business and the professions

“Doing not learning to do,

is the essence of entrepreneurship”

Guy Kawasaki

Stage one: Oct-Dec 2014

PROBLEM

Academic excellence for business and the professions

               

               

What’s the problem?

How big is the problem?

Whose problem is it?

How is it currently solved?

1 2

3 4

Startup design brief

Stage two: Feb-Mar 2015

SOLUTION

4 x workshops Feb – Mar 2015

Submission deadline

Thursday 19th March

Deadline Friday 21st November

www.citystarters.co.uk/cityspark

Stage two "nal Tuesday 31st March

5 x £3,000 prizes

Stage three: July 2015

PROTOTYPE

The UK’s leading pre-accelerator programme for early-stage startups

www.FFWDLondon.com

Back to stage two…

Judging criteria

•  Is there a clearly de"ned problem? •  Is there a clearly articulated & di#erentiated solution? •  Is the market clearly de"ned, addressable and

scalable? •  Is there a viable and sustainable business model? •  Is the plan backed-up by concrete evidence?

Sounds great, but what are you really

looking for?

ACTION

TRACTION

Academic excellence for business and the professions

Where do all startups start?

Academic excellence for business and the professions

I have a super duper techy innovation!!!

I have an idea!!!

I have a passion!!!

See: Bill Aulet, www.disciplinedentrepreneurship.com

Why do most startups fail?

Academic excellence for business and the professions

concept Dev testing launch customer

Academic excellence for business and the professions

See: Gi# Constance, www.talkingtohumans.com

Academic excellence for business and the professions

concept Dev testing launch customer

I’m sorry, but why do I need this

again?

Academic excellence for business and the professions

Introducing Steve Blank

Academic excellence for business and the professions

Key idea 1 Startups operate in Search mode

Academic excellence for business and the professions

Academic excellence for business and the professions

Established companies

Execute against an established

business model

Startups

Need to search for a scalable & pro"table

business model

Key idea 2 The only way you can "nd a

business model is to “get out of the building!”

Academic excellence for business and the professions

Academic excellence for business and the professions

See: Gi# Constance, www.talkingtohumans.com

Academic excellence for business and the professions

Academic excellence for business and the professions

customer

Academic excellence for business and the professions

customer

Key idea 3 The Customer Development

process

Academic excellence for business and the professions Customer discovery

Customer validation

Problem – solution "t

Problem – market "t

Problem-Solution "t = You’ve identi"ed a real-world

customer problem and a possible solution

Product-Market "t = You’ve built a product that early adopters will pay you money for

Academic excellence for business and the professions

Customer discovery

Customer validation

Problem – solution "t

Problem – market "t

Yay, this is awesome!

Fail fast Fail cheap Fail small

Academic excellence for business and the professions

Exercise 1

•  15-mins, working individually or in teams

•  Take the business hypothesis worksheet and complete as many sections as possible

•  Make sure your answers are as concise and speci"c

as possible

•  Don’t over-think the exercise!!!

Exercise 2

•  15-mins, working in groups of 2 or 3

•  What assumptions have we made that, if proven wrong, would cause the business to fail?

•  Take the second worksheet and list as many of these assumptions as possible

•  Make your assumptions as concise and speci"c as

possible

The Chillow®

Assumptions

•  We believe that people care about pillow temperature •  We believe that people care about sleep quality when

purchasing a pillow •  We believe we can sell online to customers •  We believe our customers will be young urban professionals •  We believe that our very "rst customers will be new graduates

who need to out"t their apartments •  We believe that we can sell our pillows at a high enough price to

cover our costs •  We believe that we can raise enough capital to cover

investments in manufacturing

Exercise 2

•  15-mins, working in groups of 2 or 3

•  What assumptions have we made that, if proven wrong, would cause the business to fail?

•  Take the second worksheet and list as many of these assumptions as possible

•  Make your assumptions as concise and speci"c as

possible

Homework

•  Before next week’s session

•  Review your list and mark the assumptions that would have a large impact on your business and feel highly uncertain

•  Prioritise your top-3 assumptions

•  Download Talking to Humans PDF and read pages 1-27 (www.talkingtohumans.com)

RECAP

Key points •  We’re not just looking for hypothetical business ideas or plans –

we want to see action, traction and evidence

•  Every new business idea is an article of faith precariously perched on a big stack of assumptions

•  You need to challenge these assumptions right from the start – not sail blissfully towards an epic fail at the end

•  This means that you need to understand what assumptions you’re making

•  And then rank them in order of priority.

CitySpark Seminars

Week 2

Testing your assumptions

Academic excellence for business and the professions