How to Find a Market? Use Jobs-To-Be-Done as the Front End of Customer Discovery

Modern entrepreneurship began at the turn of the 21st century with the observation that startups aren’t smaller versions of large companies – large companies at their core execute known business models, while startups search for scalable business models. Lean Methodology consists of three tools designed for entrepreneurs building new ventures: The Business Model Canvas – to write down all […]

A Path to the Minimum Viable Product

I first met Shawn Carolan and his wife Jennifer at the turn of the century at 11,000 feet. I was hiking with my kids between the Yosemite High Sierra camps. Having just retired from a career as an entrepreneur I had started thinking about why startups were different from large companies. The ideas were bouncing around […]

Your Product is Not Their Problem

There are no facts inside your building, so get the heck outside I just had a call with Lorenz, a former business school student who started a job at a biotech startup making bacteria to take CO2 out of the air. His job was to find new commercial markets for this bacteria at scale.  And […]

A Quick Course on Lean

Over the weekend I got asked the best way to teach students the principles of Lean via Zoom. One of the key lessons from our Educators Conference is that when teaching online complex information needs to be delivered to students in small, easily processed parts. I realized that pre-pandemic I had put together a series […]

Why Innovation Heroes are a Sign of a Dysfunctional Organization

A week ago I got invited to an “innovation hero” award ceremony at a government agency. I don’t know how many of these I’ve been to in the last couple years, but this one just made my head explode. The award was for an entrepreneur who worked against all odds to buck the system to […]

What’s Plan B? – The Small, the Agile, and the Many

This post previously appeared in the Proceedings of the Naval Institute. One of the most audacious and bold manifestos for the future of Naval innovation has just been posted by the Rear Admiral who heads up the Office of Naval Research. It may be the hedge we need to deter China in the South China […]

Technology, Innovation, and Modern War – Class 17 – Organizational Design – Safi Bahcall

We just held our seventeenth session of our new national security class Technology, Innovation and Modern War. Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I designed a class to examine the new military systems, operational concepts and doctrines that will emerge from 21st century technologies – Space, Cyber, AI & Machine Learning and Autonomy. Today’s topic was Organizational Design and Modern War. […]

Technology, Innovation, and Modern War – Class 8 – AI – Chris Lynch and Nand Mulchandani

We just held our eighth session of our new national security class Technology, Innovation and Modern War. Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I designed a class to examine the new military systems, operational concepts and doctrines that will emerge from 21st century technologies – Space, Cyber, AI & Machine Learning and Autonomy. Today’s topic was Artificial Intelligence and Modern […]

Technology, Innovation and Modern War – Class 6 – Will Roper

We just held our sixth session of our new national security class Technology, Innovation and Modern War. Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I designed a class to examine the new military systems, operational concepts and doctrines that will emerge from 21st century technologies – Space, Cyber, AI & Machine Learning and Autonomy. Today’s topic was Innovations in Acquiring Technologies […]

The Covid-19 virus is not politically correct

The Covid-19 virus is not politically correct. It discriminates against the old and the unhealthy. The biggest risk factor in dying from the virus is age. If you’re 60 to 70 years old, you’re 30 times more likely to die from Covid-19 than if you’re under 40. And if you’re over 80, you’re 180 times […]

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