For the past 60 years the financial services industry has been booming. Since 1980, year over year growth rates tripled and large entities flourished as smaller competitors crumbled. With low interest rates and new regulations, banks grew quickly as the rest of the marketplace piggybacked off their success. Savvy and risk-averse business men and women […]
Three years ago, I was coaching a successful company that was very confused about the failure of a recent product launch. When I was first hired, they told me they were convinced they had done everything by the book. Before developing the product, the company held five focus groups with potential customers to make sure […]
(Note: This is the second installment of a multipart series on conducting customer interviews and discovering true migraine problems. And check out the first article in the series.) Ok, you’re on the bandwagon. You understand that you need to a get to a new level when it comes to understanding your customers and finding their […]
What does it feel like to have a terrible business idea? The kind where people laugh behind your back as you walk away? Take a moment. Think about it. It actually feels a lot like having the world's best business idea…right up until the moment when the market tells you that you don’t have anything anyone wants. I meet with a lot […]
No innovator fails because they couldn’t build their product. They fail because no one found value in what they built. Here’s what usually happens when someone gets a new idea: Their mind starts racing with all the possibilities of what it could turn into, the impact it could have on the world, and all the […]
I’ve been thinking about my first motorcycle accident. I’m not counting the time when I drove my Kawasaki Ninja to my friend Eric’s house and, while showing it off, fell over and needed his help to pick it back up. No, this was a lot more serious I was attempting to make a left turn […]
Corporate innovation is all the rage these days. With plenty of money and time at their disposal, employees have ample resources to create the next big thing. But before they commit too many resources to an idea, these intrapreneurs can learn a lot from successful entrepreneurs who operate with fewer resources. Innovation within a corporation […]
Launching new products and services is the only way to stay competitive in the new economy. Unfortunately, most companies have a process in place that stifles innovation. I recently gave a TEDx talk titled "Our Approach to Innovation is Dead Wrong" about why our traditional thinking with regard to launching new products or initiatives is actually killing those new ideas […]
A few weeks ago, at the National Association of Community College Entrepreneurship (NACCE) Conference, I took part in a panel discussion on the subject of preparing our future workforce for entrepreneurial thinking. As companies increasingly express an interest in creative, innovative employees, one of the hottest questions in entrepreneurship education has become, “How do we […]
The data you choose to measure to test the success of a project is very important. If you measure vanity metrics instead of measuring real value based on the strategic goals of the organization, you could end up with a warehouse full of cupcake supplies. The metrics you choose to measure the success of any […]
