13 Innovation Articles from September

Your Concept of “Idea Validation” is Probably Wrong – Viable Ventures

• “Most entrepreneurs think “Idea Validation” is about proving they are RIGHT about their business idea. Idea validation is about figuring out how wrong you are. The less wrong you are, the more merit your idea has, and the more it is validated.”

Three Maps to Innovation Success – Robyn Bolton

• “Maps are incredibly useful. Until they’re not. Innovation literature has more maps than a Rick Steves’ guidebook, and most are quite useful. If they’re used at the right time for the right purposes in the right way by the right people (which is a lot of rights that have to be right).” Robyn summarizes a few of her favorites in this piece published in Human-Centered Change and Innovation.

How to Identify Your Ideal Customer Profile – Lenny Rachitsky

• Part three of my seven-part series on kickstarting and scaling a B2B business looking at figuring out who to solve the problem for.

What Should Be Included in a Business Case? – Jeff Gothelf

• “…I’ve left out potential future revenue, profit margin, cost of developing the product, marketing, advertising, et al. I do think you can put these things in your business case. Realistically, your stakeholders would likely reject your pitch without this material. However, I would suggest that this section go under a big, red banner that says “THIS IS PURE SPECULATION” or something perhaps a bit more business friendly.

Four More Articles

Why Who You Are & What You Do Dictate How You Innovate – Robyn Bolton

• “Your identity is killing innovation. Innovation is something new that creates value. Identity is carefully constructed, enduring, and fiercely protected and reinforced. When innovation and identity conflict, innovation usually loses. Whether the innovation is incremental, adjacent, or radical doesn’t matter. If it conflicts with the company’s identity, it will join the 99.9% of innovations that are canceled before they ever launch.”

The Four Stages of Validation – David Rogers

• “It is a Silicon Valley truism that great businesses don’t start with a great idea; they start with an idea and then test and pivot their way to what works in the market. Instead of the traditional corporate reflex to plan, plan, plan, and then build; digital start-ups succeed through a constant process of experimentation.”

3 Founder Questions That Say A Lot About Your Startup Ecosystem – Chris Heivly

4 Ways Corporations Can Support the Startup Ecosystem – Bread & Butter Ventures

• “Bring the best of the entrepreneurial ecosystem to your company, infuse your culture with it, and encourage your employees to share some of your internal culture with the startup community.”

Five More Articles

A Guide for Finding Product-market Fit – Lenny Rachitsky

• Part five of Lenny’s series on building and scaling a B2B company. “In B2B, it normally takes two years to start feeling product-market fit. Though there’s no formula for finding PMF, you can significantly increase your odds, and save yourself a lot of time and heartache, by studying the lessons of those who’ve made it.”

AI Startup Trends: Insights from Y Combinator’s Latest Batch – Viggy Balagopalakrishnan

• In Y Combinator’s Winter 2023 cohort, ~31% of startups have a self-reported AI tag. Viggy outlines what types of companies are being built on top of the latest in AI and how they are identifying problems to solve, what approaches they are taking to the solutions, what they are doing right as well as potential risks in their approach.

Build a Successful MVP Using the YCombinator Strategy – Stephen Adesins

• “You only really start learning about your user when you put a product in front of them. Not by doing a 1000 surveys, and gathering a mailing list, or fundraising for half a year.”

Nine Wild Details from the New Elon Musk Biography – Casey Newton

1. “On the whole, Isaacson depicts Musk as an era-defining genius shaped by childhood trauma and a manic, visionary zeal to invent. At the same time, the biography does not suggest that Musk is pleasant, tolerable, or even safe to work for. After hundreds of pages of anecdotes, Isaacson notes accurately that Musk “preferred a scrappy, hard-driven environment where rabid warriors felt psychological danger rather than comfort.”

Coke’s New Mystery Flavor Created with AI – CNN

• “Coca-Cola released a new limited-edition mystery drink called Y3000, using AI to help determine the undisclosed flavor profile and futuristic packaging.” (HatTip: The RundownAI Newsletter )

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