Page 99 - Grow from Within Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation

86 grow from within

merit? Which could add the most value if you were able to
make them happen? After you have selected your priority con-
cepts, see if there are any that are mutually exclusive. In other
words, are there any cases where, if you select one, you can’t
select the other? For instance, if you decide to leverage an exist-
ing dealer network, would this preclude you from selling
online directly to consumers? Start to build hypothetical busi-
ness systems that fit together and make sense. As you do so,
one or more likely business designs will become clear.
Once you start to visualize a more comprehensive business
design—a conceptual prototype, really—note that it is still just
hypothetical. The next step will be to build your plan to gather
information, run experiments, talk to people, or do whatever it
is that you need to do to learn what’s necessary to design a com-
plete, effective business system. In this early stage, you still have
the luxury of selecting more than one possible business design.

Step 4: Prioritize the Uncertainties

At this point, all you’ll have will be assumptions and hypothe-
ses based on them, whether they are about value propositions,
production costs, legal factors, internal organizational challenges,
or anything else that you don’t know for sure. Based on your
hypothesized business system designs, consider what uncer-
tainties you have. What do you need to know to be confident that
you’ve got the right business design? What do you have a good
feeling about, but need solid data to dispute or refute?
This is an obvious step, but too many entrepreneurs, corpo-
rate or independent, fail to take a rigorous approach to uncer-
tainties. They assume what they know and know what they
assume, so they end up missing critical issues.
While you’re building your plan, you’ll find that you have to
make certain assumptions. Assumptions are simply educated