Artificial Intelligence as a Catalyst for Innovation

Modar (JR) Alaoui
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Eyeris






By now, it is widely understood that Artificial Intelligence is a main catalyst for innovation and organizational growth. In fact, AI has been part of our imaginations and simmering in research labs since a handful of computer scientists rallied around the term at the Dartmouth Conferences in 1956 and birthed the field of AI. 

However, it wasn’t until recently that AI has started delivering on its long awaited promise, thanks in large part to the recent advancements in machine learning, and more particularly deep learning.

The combination of the recent advancements in microprocessors, coupled with the commoditization of GPU-based super computers along with today’s massive amounts of datasets available for algorithm – supervised and unsupervised – training has clearly enabled the (r)evolution of Deep Learning.

As is the case for most emerging technologies, those who leverage the afore-mentioned enabling items ride the early waves of deep learning.  Not only do they get to discover early challenges, but also disrupt greatly by solving them to benefit their respective technologies, whether in speech, text or image recognition, 

We, in the image analysis area come at it from personal experiences, which allow us to use deep learning as a medium to continuously push the boundaries of facial expression recognition.

Popular deep learning architectures such as Convolutional Neural Networks address image and speech recognition applications. CNNs deem to be easier to train than other regular, deep, feed-forward neural networks since they can be trained with standard backpropagation. They have many fewer parameters to estimate, making them a highly attractive architecture to use for image analysis, especially in our case of emotion tracking through facial micro-expression recognition.

While there are a number of applications that can benefit from emotion recognition today, we have purposely chosen our industry verticals to solve harder problems by leveraging unique technology differentiators, including the integration of Deep Learning architectures into our expression recognition algorithms for continuous and improved learning in relatively short timeframes.

Our mission towards advancing Ambient Intelligence (AmI) allows us to enable a new era of Human Machine Interaction (HMI) where embedded systems, including everyday devices and machines, can understand and predict users emotions and respond accordingly in time-critical situations to enhance user experiences. Predictability and improved accuracy through rapid adaptation are key areas that affect user and environment personalization and delivery.

While there are a large number of different variants of deep architectures, most of them remain branches of some original parent architectures. Since not all of these architectures are implemented on the same datasets, it is not always possible today to compare their performance all together. 

Deep learning, however, is a fast-growing field so new architectures, variants and algorithms are expected to branch out more and more, and each will target many or a specific problem in its respective area. Industries like Healthcare for drug discovery and toxicology or Automotive for scene recognition and camera view interpretation are all ripe for more developments with Deep Learning architectures in the coming years.

Deep learning is a tool that allows algorithm training through one of its infrastructures using either supervised labeled data, unsupervised labeled data or through reinforced learning. In either case, data here, both in quality and quality, represents the “raw material” that, via the deep learning “tool”, permits for algorithm training and is a lot of time, a crucial indicator to accuracy.

Both the large numbers of available datasets today and the ones being implicitly amassed by companies of all sizes, startups and large corporations, are what is shaping the future of deep learning. Being part of and contributing to this future with our own proprietary datasets and Artificially Intelligent algorithms, is certainly exciting. 

This raw material data, together with the deep learning tool are enabling the “fruit” of advanced decision-making algorithms, some of which include our technology, outweigh human logic, speed and overall performance. And this is what excites us the most.

Modar is a tech entrepreneur and technologist with a special interest in Embedded Vision for user facial behavioral measurement. He is a frequent speaker on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Deep Learning (DL), Face Analytics & Emotion Recognition through facial micro-expressions, Human Machine Interaction (HMI), Robotics Vision and the keyword for next decade: Ambient Intelligence (AmI).

He is the Founder and CEO of Eyeris, the world's leading Deep Learning-based Artificially Intelligent emotion recognition and face analytics technology. Eyeris' flagship product, EmoVu, is a hardware-agnostic Computer Vision software that reads people's facial micro-expressions in real-time, as part of the most comprehensive suite of face analytics.

Innovation and Leadership

Michael Flynn
Vice President, Innovation & Strategy
Bank of the West




What is more impactful? Innovation or leadership? The theme for this e-Bulletin presents a quandary for me. Innovation can definitely serve as a catalyst for leadership and growth, but what motivates innovation to begin with? It’s easy to get caught up in a discussion of great “swing for the fences” technology efforts that led to the first successful moon shot, decoding of the human genome, first self-driving cars, and so on. What is often missed is an examination of what spurred or allowed those and lesser innovations to happen in the first place.

Invention creates possibilities. More often than not, leadership provides the fuel and direction that enable the successful commercialization of invention (i.e., innovation). Neither invention nor leadership by themselves can drive engines of innovation that create and sustain business growth. In successful businesses that experience consistent and sustainable growth, innovation and leadership are intertwined and reinforce each other to ultimately create a culture that thrives on challenges and delivers valuable products and services to its customers.

The most innovative companies foster cultures where leadership and innovation are so intertwined as to be inseparable. From the microcosm of small teams to the macrocosm of entire organizations, these successful innovators understand this self-reinforcing concept. One cannot be sustained without the other. Smart leadership understands that consistent innovation doesn’t normally result from big-bang experiments occurring in isolated “clean rooms” walled-off from the rest of the business. If anything, these leaders understand that sustained innovation is difficult, stressful, and even messy at times. Things break and emotions come into play. However, it is steadfastness in the face of this volatility that separates the greatest innovators and their higher growth companies from the pack of innovation tinkerers; the latter are not willing to put forward the effort and resources required to build and sustain cultures that embrace tolerance of risk and doing things differently. A long history of abandoned innovation initiatives speaks to many businesses’ inability to remain focused and consistent, if not patient, in their desire to realize near-term benefit from innovation-related investments. Irrespective of product or service focus, many organizations cast off innovation efforts when business climates toughen. This speaks directly to the role of leadership, or lack thereof.

There are variants of models and best practices for innovation. Ruling out unproven ones lacking in qualitative and quantitative corroborative data, there is a reason for this. That reason is the richness and diversity of company cultures. These differences reflect any number of characteristics from scale, to core competencies, to adaptability, to identity, and more. Successful organizations understand their inherent culture knowing that their respective innovation and growth trajectory will most likely resemble the zigzag path of a sailboat tacking in the wind rather than the smooth curve of a rocket. They will navigate a path that enables transformation over time while reaping benefits from innovation practices that produce near-term and mid-term successes, even if more incremental than market disruptive.

Absolutely, innovation can serve as a catalyst. It is certainly doing so in my industry. Traditional financial institutions are responding to pressure from emerging fintechs and peers, whether employing alternative credit models in marketplace lending, robo-advisors in wealth management, or machine learning in fraud detection. These are external motivators. They are effective but only to a point. The true measure of success in leveraging innovation for growth is in the application of leadership to help imbue the organization’s DNA with self-motivated innovation, creating a self-sustaining engine of growth. 

Michael leads teams and organizations in defining and creating the future. By leveraging both internal and external creativity, resources and assets, his teams champion and drive the crafting and integration of solution strategies, culture, and best practices to deliver innovative solutions with tangible impact and sustainable value. As Vice President, Innovation and Strategy at Bank of the West, Mike helps to discover and monitor emerging innovative business models and related technology and service trends.

As a Strategy Consulting Principal at HP, and Director of Ecosystem, Co-Innovation Lab, and Products & Innovation at SAP Mike was instrumental in transforming software design and development methods for innovation and new product development, guiding co-development of an industry-disrupting business model  and forging strategic partnerships to realize 100% growth in an innovation lab’s portfolio while securing multi-$M investments. 

Building an Entrepreneurial Culture to Spark Leadership and Growth

Jeremiah Gardner
Principal
Moves the Needle







It’s been said before but still rings true – the world is rapidly changing. It’s not only that technology has advanced, but with that advancement is a wave of digital disruption, rising customer expectations, and non-traditional challengers. These changes present both new challenges to face and new opportunities for growth.

Enterprises around the world are asking themselves, “How do we meet the challenges presented in this shifting landscape?” “How can we continue to create change and explore new opportunities?” “How do we use innovation as a catalyst for transformation?”

Increasingly, the ability for an enterprise to practice innovation (not just talk about it) is critical to meeting the challenges of today. 

What is “Innovation?”

The answer to these challenges seems to be captured in an increasingly-popular buzzword, “innovation.” It’s ever-present in the values of almost every enterprise across the world, gets mentioned in countless keynote addresses, and is sure to get a chip placed in any conference attendee’s game of “Business Buzzword Bingo.” 

But there is a difference between “innovation theater” and innovation as a competitive advantage. 

Innovation means creating new value. It’s not just new products, or new technologies, or new breakthroughs; but creating new value throughout the entire organization. 

This means focusing innovation efforts in HR, marketing, internal process reinvention, management, sales, procurement, and yes, even legal, are critical to an organization’s ability to remain competitive and evolve.

In our work with some of the leading organizations in the world we’ve found the foundation to establishing innovation as a practice – not just a buzzword – is fostering an environment for “Entrepreneurial Spirit.”

How Do You Awaken an Entrepreneurial Spirit?

Entrepreneurial Spirit is what empowers small, focused groups of intrapreneurs to make drastic impact by discovering new value, flipping existing markets, or even disrupting entrenched industries. 

Entrepreneurial Spirit drives these intrapreneurs to do so with only a fraction of the resources large enterprises have at their disposal (versus wasting months and millions on a new initiative only to see it flop).

The lack of Entrepreneurial Spirit allows organizations to become complacent and miss the boat entirely on the new demands and expectations of their customers. 

How do you recognize Entrepreneurial Spirit when you see it? It shows up in the behaviors of people who:

• Prioritize learning over execution
• Seek to understand the needs of a market deeply, not superficially
• Assume they’re wrong and experiment at small scale prior to scaling
• Follow the evidence, not the roadmap

Fostering the Conditions for Entrepreneurial Spirit To Thrive

The truth is, leaders and managers can’t mandate Entrepreneurial Spirit, they can only create the conditions in which it is likely to ferment, thrive, and grow. If the environment is shaped successfully, this way of working can spread throughout an organization causing ripples and waves of cultural transformation.

How do large organizations with established customer bases, thousands of employees, stockholders, and millions of dollars on the table empower innovation? 

The conditions for entrepreneurial spirit to thrive in the enterprise involve both a mindset and a skillset. 

Mindset

The mindset for innovation is straightforward: balance execution and learning. Most enterprise organizations already know how to execute well. After all, it’s how they got big in the first place. But often enterprises fail when they apply their execution mindset on the learning side of the equation.

Instead, leaders must balance resource allocation and focus in both the known (execution) and the unknown (learning). This means aligning KPI’s, reward incentives, supporting functions, and organizational structures to empower intrapreneurs to activate their entrepreneurial spirit. At Moves the Needle, we like to break it down into education, enable, and empower.

Skillset

An innovation mindset is critical but not enough. Without the requisite skillset, entrepreneurial spirit can easily slide back into becoming a buzzword. To practice innovation, intrapreneurs need three critical skills we’ve come to call the “3 E’s”: empathy, experimentation and evidence-based decision making.

Empathy means the ability to develop deep understanding for your customers, the problems they face, and the aspirations they hold. The farther you are away from the customer in your daily work, the farther you are away from practicing innovation. 

Enabling your employees to have direct, authentic interactions with real customers is job one in fostering the conditions for innovation to thrive. Every Lean Innovation Bootcamp we conduct intentionally starts with practicing customer empathy through interviewing real customers. This is the foundation for new ideas. Truth be told –  there is no more powerful tool in your innovation toolbox than a cup of coffee with a customer.

Experimentation means the ability to identify critical assumptions lying beneath the surface of your ideas and generate evidence to validate or invalidate your current path. Experiments are designed to rapidly find out whether the underpinning assumptions about an idea are valid or not, before investing in expensive development. 

Time and time again we see teams run experiments and produce evidence that guides their work. In the end, they’re better able to allocate resources and mitigate the risk of sinking time, energy, and money into a venture that isn’t worth pursuing. 

Evidence-based Decision Making means the ability to not only generate evidence, but to follow what the evidence is saying. The biggest competitive advantage of any organization is their ability to learn, and rapidly turn insight into action.

The goal is to build a case over time using multiple rounds of empathy and continuous rapid experiments to provide the evidence you need to prove the venture creates new value, and a return.

Three Questions

Coupling the mindset of balancing the known versus the unknown with the skillset of empathy, experimentation, and evidence-based decision making are the foundation to awakening an entrepreneurial spirit and building a successful enterprise innovation practice.

If you’re serious about going beyond the buzz, here are three questions to help you evaluate and accelerate your innovation practice: 

1. How are you empowering your organization to practice innovation, not just talk about it?
2. How are you fostering an environment for “Entrepreneurial Spirit” to grow and thrive?
3. What obstacles are standing in your way to put innovation into practice and spark new leadership and growth?

Jeremiah Gardner helps organizations create new value. He is the author of the bestselling book, The Lean Brand and Principal at Moves The Needle where he empowers companies like GE, Sprint, eBay, Intuit, and Cisco practice Lean Innovation. He has been featured in several media outlets including Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, Lifehacker, and The Guardian. Jeremiah reads a lot of Mark Twain, is an avid Lakers fan, and a self-professed amateur home chef. 

Jeremiah tweets @JeremiahGardner and blogs at http://jeremiahgardner.com.

Your Corporation is Killing Innovation without Knowing It

By Brian Moelich
Customer and Idea Implementation Lead
Cisco






Before innovation even starts, corporate alarms are ringing and walls are raised.

In the post-recession economy, markets are changing faster than the mighty corporations of old can keep up with. To combat the epidemic of nimble startups, corporations are advocating fresh thinking such as prototyping, failing fast and quick iterations based on customer feedback.

But few if any corporations have been able to point to any concrete successes, no matter the size. Why is that?

Large organizations are always going to be risk averse

A publicly traded corporation must not only appease shareholders but also Wall Street analysts and the corporation’s executives who hold the purse strings are rated predominantly on financial performance.

New ideas within corporations don’t always achieve short-term profitability, and thus it is difficult to convince decision-makers to reallocate capital from an existing cash cow to an “ugly duckling” innovation project. Corporate resources will inevitably go towards incremental established brand innovations and not disruptive new market innovations, which are inherently risky.

Remember that it was Kodak who invented the first digital camera, and chose to continue investing in film R&D over a risky new venture. Everyone knows how that story ended.

Play into the risk-averse nature of large corporations

For a corporate innovation project to succeed, it is necessary to recognize that the executive investing in the innovation project has corporate strategic goals to uphold.

The key for the innovation project’s success then becomes to fit into the corporation’s strategic goals. The following are some key factors to encourage this outcome:

1. Find out what keeps executives up at night – There are two approaches that corporations have found successful 1) use executive problems for innovation challenges and   2) tie the innovation project to or search out projects that match an executive challenge.

EMC and Deloitte have been very successful at taking executive challenges and posing them to the corporation as an innovation challenge, which employees can submit ideas for. Success is derived from the fact that executive buy-in is built in from the onset, because the ideas are directly tied to the executive’s imperatives.

The Citrix Startup Accelerator’s Innovator’s Program and recent Citrix hackathons have engaged with executive sponsors prior to kickoff and used their input on challenges as selection criteria. Much like the first approach, executive buy-in is assured as teams enter the program with ideas that match executive needs.

2. Develop a monetization roadmap – Innovation projects attain a quick death due to a rapid demand for monetization. In some instances, this is possible, but for most, a user base needs to be established before the market is willing to pay.

Ash Maurya is beginning to popularize a framework that calls attention on attaining users prior to revenue.

This model is helpful because it addresses the challenge of organizations understanding the needs of startup marketing versus established brand marketing. Additionally, the framework helps innovation project teams outline what their plans are to eventually reach revenue.

The push to monetization can also be prevented by demonstrating how the innovation project brings other forms of value to the corporation. For example, accessing a new user base to cross-sell existing brands.

3. Gauge executive buy-in throughout the process – Using executive buy-in as a gate to pivot, persevere or kill is critical, because without buy-in, the project is already dead on arrival.

The corporate innovation process should have gates where certain criteria should be met before moving on. At each of these gates, executive input must be acquired and should be used as a determining factor as to whether the gate is achieved.

It is also helpful to prime executives with what the criteria and stages of the innovation process are, so that they are aware of how to judge and assess the innovation project. Otherwise, the executive might have a higher expectation based on traditional corporate outcomes than what could reasonably be expected of an innovation project.

4. Speak the language of the executive – Not only do innovators need to have vision, they need to be able to explain it in the C-suite’s language.

Entrepreneurs are quick to state that startups are liberating versus a stifling corporate culture, but the reality is that even entrepreneurs are beholden to others. Entrepreneurs are bound to their investors, while corporate innovators are indebted to their executives. Both need to translate their vision into a language that their stakeholder understands.

That language is one based on quantitative factors. For investors, the considerations are traction, growth and revenue. For executives, the elements are cost, payback period and top line revenue growth.

5. Get Line Function Buy-In – It isn’t only the C-suite that needs to be convinced but the “doers” as well.

As much as the C-suite needs to be bought into the conversation, the other critical component is the “doers:” mid-level management. Without convincing the “doers” of the project’s necessity, these managers will continue to throw up barriers that will eventually kill innovation within the corporation.

6. Be Selective. Take Baby Steps –  Dreaming the world is great, but taking actionable baby steps is better.

Corporate innovators are great at envisioning future states, but often fail to concretely translate their vision into beneficial steps. In other words, corporate innovators tend to be perceived as dreamers, rather than doers, which relegates their concepts to the bottom of the corporate priority list.

Overcome this perception by ensuring that the initial ask is not only actionable, but also achievable in the short term. Present small projects in the language of the C-suite and deliver on them to build the groundwork for the grander vision.

Corporate innovation requires an understanding of the organization’s needs

Innovation within a corporation requires a recognition that the corporation is inherently risk averse and the only way to push innovation through is to accept this and appease it. Every move and decision a successful corporate innovator makes is based on directly reducing this risk or taking steps to bypass risk by addressing corporate challenges head-on.

This article was co-authored with Eric Quon-Lee and originally published in Huffington Post

With more than six years of experience solving ambiguous problems across multiple top tier technology companies, Brian Moelich has a proven track record for identifying and exploring untapped opportunities for new growth and managing the execution of those ideas. His passion is taking nascent ideas from concept to launch and building desirable, feasible and viable businesses.

Currently, Brian is the Customer and Idea Implementation Lead for the Cisco Hyperinnovation Living Lab or CHILL for short. CHILL drives disruptive innovation through the collaboration and co-creation of Fortune 500 companies and startups. Brian was previously a Business Designer at Citrix, where he designed facilitated and ran the internal innovation incubator program and advised teams post-program on how to navigate corporate hurdles, de-risk the technology and business, develop and test prototypes, go-to-market and grow once in market. He is also a mentor for the Citrix Startup Accelerator and the French Tech Hub.

Perfecting the Art of Ongoing Innovation

By Deepankar Pant
Senior Brand Manager, Innovation
Jarden Home Brands

The process of ongoing innovation to deliver new products and services results from skills and discipline that actually combine elements of both art and science. In any industry or business a state of perpetual dissatisfaction, from any of the stakeholders in the value-chain: investors, suppliers, intermediaries or end-users, fuels the emergence of new ideas and concepts. 

The innate curiosity to observe and learn from consumer circumstances, the nuanced probing of specific motivators and barriers influencing consumer behavior, and the creative conception of possible solutions is largely an art form. Best practice techniques for qualitative research, predictive forecasting, and quantitative validation implemented as part of disciplined processes, are akin to science – repeatable and scalable. The art of observing and gleaning meaningful information (aka consumer insights), that enables the development of improved new products or paradigm shifting breakthrough innovations, can be learned with training and practice. Some individuals have a natural advantage with this skill – a built-in mind-set for curiosity, a higher curiosity quotient (CQ). Often, the more diverse the teams working on new products, the higher the probability of including individuals with this curious mind-set.    

For continued growth and to maintain competitive relevance, many organizations have committed to innovation as one of their strategic drivers. Perfecting how to maximize the marketplace impact with available resources and assets is the quintessential challenge. At an elemental level, there are 3 broad levers that organizations use for the strategic approach and tactical plays that activate innovation: organizational Commitment to innovation; the role of People – employees as well as external partners; and the Process of activating innovation across the value chain. More detail as follows:  

Commitment: The level of commitment from senior leaders in the organization to invest in innovation as a strategic competency and deliberately ingrain it in the culture is crucial. Goal setting at the highest level to foster innovation makes it more of an operating rhythm than a job imperative for a few functions. Such a pervasive culture can be distinctively more conducive to creativity and innovation versus segregated skunk works.    

People: An employee pool with diverse backgrounds, range of skill-sets and varied abilities to problem solve is a strategic asset. Some of the highest functioning teams recognize this and have this as a core underlying trait. Offering formal and   informal forums to employees across the value-chain, to engage with innovation, unlocks their cumulative creative power. Procurement and customer affairs teams should have the same opportunity as marketing and R&D. 

Process: While an appropriate level of rigor for market research techniques and standardized metrics at every stage of commercialization is the minimum, of highest importance is the crystal clear understanding of end-user needs, and the relevance of the innovation effort to the overall business.   

A hypothesized framework employing the above 3 levers is captured below. The sweet spot is an ongoing movement towards the top right horizon. 

Balancing an entrepreneurial orientation with strong strategic and analytical skills, Deepankar helps solve business challenges with a resolute focus on accomplishing revenue and margin objectives. His specialities include product innovation, product management and brand marketing. Previous roles include Senior Market Development Manager, Life Technologies and Product Manager, DENTSPLY International.

Crossing the Valuation Chasm: Importance of Technology Valuation in Licensing

By Dipanjan "DJ" Nag
Chief Executive Officer and President
Prediqtus





 

Not many would argue the fact that Universities are the key innovation driver of our economy. With more than $65 billion a year spent on research and with an efficiency better than most industry partners in creating fundamental and disruptive innovations, universities still face a challenge in getting these technologies to market. We are performing research to understand what some of those challenges are that hold us back from getting these technologies to the hands of users. The pathway to market for these technologies is either through an industry partner or through a startup.

 In this article we will focus on how industry and universities differ in their approach to licensing. This comparison might not be a fair one, because universities inherently have a different mission than industry does, i.e. industry’s sole motivation is profit and the university’s sole mission is dissemination of knowledge (and technology). In the recent times, post 1980 after enactment of Bayh-Dole act, technology transfer has become one of the top missions for universities and economic development and job creation are now metrics that a university must closely attend.

How are universities dealing with technology transfer (or commercialization or development) in a way that is so fundamentally different from industry? For one, consider the approach to valuation. If you look at the approach taken by universities, it starts with creating one page summaries of technology called non-confidential summaries (NCS). The NCS is a great way to communicate that a certain technology is available but it surely does not communicate the value of that technology. In fact after benchmarking more than 50 technology transfer practices it is apparent that most of them do not use valuation methods at all.

Speaking with numerous industry licensing leaders, including the ones at IP100 conference this year in Phoenix, AZ, most feel that there is a disconnect with universities (rightly or wrongly) on these key areas (in no particular order):

• Valuation of the technology
• Maturity of technology
• Structure of relationship including IP terms
• Time taken to close a deal

For its part, industry does not begin to understand the notion of value expected by the university for a certain technology. The apprehension is that a university will overvalue the technology. By the same token universities often believe that industry undervalues the technology. The value proposition of a technology to industry and most importantly the VALUE of the technology itself needs to be clearly defined.

Innovation Is For Everyone

By Eugene Yamnitsky
Senior Manager
Product Management & Innovation
Citrix





Over the past 5 months I’ve been talking to many people interested in innovation, and fairly consistently people assume that innovation is only for engineers. This is a myth worth busting. Like it is with many things in life, the real answer is in finding the right balance. Seasoned Entrepreneurs unanimously advocate balance in the form of the “3H” founding team: Hacker (the coder)  /  Hipster (the designer)  /  Hustler (the go-getter).

Remember the dot-com bubble? There were many factors which led to its burst, but one in particular worth mentioning is how often companies ignored the desirability of their products. A major problem was that founders followed the “if we build it, they will come” mentality, and were surprised when “they” didn’t come. Many of these founders ignored the desirability aspect of their cool ideas, and instead went straight to coding.

Don’t get me wrong, having a working prototype you could give to the user to get feedback is invaluable, but unless you are a good software engineer who can produce the proof of concept fast, and make changes often to adapt to the feedback, that path has a high barrier to entry – it is simply too difficult and risky to follow. 

Thankfully, the Lean Startup framework outlined by authors Steve Blank and Eric Ries holds the key to innovation, and does not require coding in the early stages when your most important task is to find the product-market fit. This framework has several practices and tools. These include Customer Development, Design Thinking, Value Proposition Design, and Business Model Canvas.

Regardless of whether the founding team is versed in coding, following these practices will help increase the likelihood of your venture’s success. Here is how it works at a high level. Note that these steps are not sequential; it is recommended to do a little of everything and iterate, iterate, iterate.

Define the Customer/Problem/Solution trio

Too many startups attempt to solve multiple problems for a very large market. This leads to a lack of focus, and precious resources being spread too thin. Instead, try to define one customer segment which is most likely to benefit from your solution, define what the biggest problem you are solving for that segment is, and define a solution to that problem.

Define your hypotheses and validate them

Now that the above trio is defined, you need to make sure your assumptions about the problem are right.  Ask yourself: does the problem really exist and is it worth solving? In order to validate your assumptions, you’ll need to form several hypotheses then build a questionnaire that you will use to learn about your customer and validate the hypotheses. Then it’s time to reach out to your friends, family, and colleagues to find people matching your customer profile and interview them. After 10+ interviews assess what you have learned. Are your assumptions being validated? Did you learn about a different problem worth solving instead? Refine your assumptions, update your questionnaire and continue the interviews. 

Define the business model and validate it

If after several iterations and going back and forth between the previous steps you begin to feel like you are onto something, then it’s time to define things like the business model, your unique value proposition, what unfair advantage your solution could leverage, and what partnerships, revenue streams, etc. might be possible.

Build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

When you are getting even closer to making a decision on whether to build the product it’s time to show your customers what the solution may look like in the upcoming interviews. The MVP may take many forms. Perhaps it is a simple click-through prototype made in a tool like InVision. According to Eric Ries, an MVP is not merely a minimum set of features acceptable to the customer, an MVP is a minimum set of features that helps validate your hypotheses, and as such, does not have to be a real product. In fact, even your questionnaire is an MVP of sorts.

Now you’re ready to code

After you have validated that you are solving a pressing problem, and the feedback on your prototype is positive, you can go ahead and start coding the first version of your app. If you skip these steps and go directly to coding, there is a risk that you will be building something that no one wants, like so many did in the dot-com bubble days. Unfortunately this mistake is being repeated by startups these days as well.

We can all innovate

Now you can see that coming from non-engineering disciplines like Sales, Care, Services, Product Management, and Marketing has unique advantages, as founders from these disciplines have skills which are key to finding the product-market fit, and contribute to a successful innovation journey. 

You can come from any discipline and become a successful innovator, and the time to get started is NOW!

Eugene is an innovation catalyst and product development leader with over 15 years of experience getting things done in conditions of uncertainty and fast paced change. He has a proven track record of success in early and late stage startups and large companies.