Persevere: you could think that the 10 people you spoke to were not right and assume that if you were to interview 20 more people that you would still find a majority of people with the problem and willingness to pay. You decide to interview more people to see if the feedback you received was just the result of speaking to the wrong people. 

Pivot:  the feedback received from your target customers is not confirming your hypotheses, and so it seems that there is little value to be created if the need does not exist. One of your customers has identified another need, however, and so this creates a new hypothesis: would other movie directors face the same electricity constraints? Since you work in the automotive industry   on electric vehicles, you know quite a bit about batteries, and you see that something could be done with used electric vehicle batteries. 

The implementation phase is another word for “marketing meets finance”. In this phase, all the ideas are screened for financial viability, using forecasting and business planning. Only the most profitable idea will be “implemented”.

The contribution of ideation is to secure financing to start building the most innovative and wildest idea. By going to venture capitalists, or innovation funds, the idea is to take away the only thing that stands between the idea and making it a reality: not yet having the money.

The implementation phase is the phase where the main ideas of the ideation phase are turned into prototypes that can be tested with customers, to get feedback about the feasibility, viability and desirability of the ideas. The more the design team iterates through the design thinking cycle, the better the understanding of the product-market fit should become.

The main contribution of the ideation phase is to use as many post-it notes as possible. The goal is to make rooms colorful and to make people feel happy.

During the ideation phase, the objective is to be as critical as possible and to kill bad ideas. The main contribution is to write a detailed product specification description that can be used as a brief to manufacturing and operations staff to build a product.

The objective of the ideation phase is to use the insights from the immersion phase, and use a collective process to generate a great number of ideas, to group them into subsets and to select the ones that can be tested using prototypes with potential customers.

Ideation is the beginning of everything. You start by imagining the future 30 years from now and create products and services that will be of use in that world. Its contribution is to let go of reality and to let go of all limits of feasibility.

The main contribution of the immersion process is speed. Immersion process requires a team of specialists and experts to come together. Including the opinion of outsiders will only slow down the process.

During the immersion process, the innovation team leaves on a retreat. The idea is to be cut off of all external influences and focus on developing a crisp and clear product vision. The idea is to bring clarity and structure in thinking.

The immersion process forces the innovation team to put on the hat of an ethnographer and look at the world with new eyes, open to discovering new insights about customers, their desires, their pains and their behaviors. The main contribution is a deep and new understanding of potential customers.

Mens sana in corpore sano. The immersion phase suggests that swimming is a very healthy, but also enriching activity in stimulating creativity.

Experience is the accumulation of trial and error, of observations and learning on the field. Design thinking is proposed as a systematic way to speed up this process of learning.

Customer experience is all about designing how the customer has to feel and think. Design thinking is a methodology to manipulate a customer’s thoughts.

In order to increase the success of a product, it has to be made beautiful and cool. So thinking about this esthetic part is essential.

Experience only reflects the past. In order to innovate and set up new companies, this past is not going to be helpful in creating good companies. It is only by beginning the discovery process through design thinking workshops that one will be able to innovate.

“I hate wasting my time on projects that have little chance of succeeding. But this time, considering our first user feedback and the complementary and united team,, I think it's really worth dedicating at least the next 6 months to it, even if I won't be paid”.

“I am quite risk averse. Nevertheless, the risk of missing my idea is worse than losing money. We have a family of 4 and loans still to be repaid. Nevertheless I managed to put aside 50,000 euros and I know that I can ask my employer for a year's unpaid leave. At the same time my wife has just received a nice raise and she agrees that I can test my idea, I give myself a year without pay to test my idea.”

“I am quite risk averse and ambitious. I have been working for 3 years with M cKinsey and since I have received a 20% increase each year, I now earn more than 200,000 euros yearly. A few months ago, we signed for  the perfect property  with my partner and as  he is  an artist the monthly loan payments depend mainly on my income. Meanwhile my best friend is pushing me to join her as a partner  in the company she wants us to create. Given my standard of living, I don't feel like quitting my job and since it was my original idea, I feel like offering to work on it in my spare time, which is worth at least 50,000 euros, until the company can hire me.”

“I am quite risk averse. I find the very thought that I would be losing money that I saved up terrifying. But I also really believe in this idea that I have, so I have decided to allow myself to invest 5000 euro in it. If the idea doesn’t work, then at least I gave it a try. I think it could be really successful, but since you never know with entrepreneurship, I’m still afraid to lose more than 5000 euro. But losing 5000 euro won’t kill me either.”

Writing a business plan. In predictable environments, one can calculate with some precision how actions lead to operational and financial results. Business plans then offer managers and their constituencies a powerful method to assess risks and returns of their decisions.

Set your goals with your own means.

Doing a value chain analysis. In a predictable  industry, you are aware of the cost of goods you need to reach as well as the maximum retail price you need to reach in order to stay the game.

Doing a competitor analysis. In the automotive industry, for example, one can estimate with some accuracy when new competing models and technologies will come to the market. In order to ensure that sufficient attention is paid to one’s own products, it is important to position them relative to competitor products.

Persevere: you could think that the 10 people you spoke to were not right and assume that if you were to interview 20 more people that you would still find a majority of people with the problem and willingness to pay. You decide to interview more people to see if the feedback you received was just the result of speaking to the wrong people.

Pivot:  the feedback received from your target customers is not confirming your hypotheses, and so it seems that there is little value to be created if the need does not exist. One of your customers has identified another need, however, and so this creates a new hypothesis: would other movie directors face the same electricity constraints? Since you work in the automotive industry   on electric vehicles, you know quite a bit about batteries, and you see that something could be done with used electric vehicle batteries.

Perish: the feedback received from your target customers is not confirming your hypotheses, and so it seems that there is little value to be created if the need does not exist. Even though one of your customers has identified another need, you decide that your passion is not really with movie directors as a population, and so you decide to let go of the idea and unwind during a great mountain bike ride.

Pursue: even though the feedback received from your potential customers is negative, you decide that this is just because they haven’t seen your solution yet. If you build a great application and a great website with a lot of available movie locations, then you are sure they will use it.

In order to get good ideas, entrepreneurs need to spend time by themselves. To get good ideas, being focused without being disturbed is the key to success.

Most innovations are re-combinations: applying a principle or a concept from one industry, market or technology, and applying to another.

Entrepreneurial ideas project a potential future, an option that could be turned into reality. But in order for that to happen, only execution and learning can tell whether the option can also be a reality.  

The origin of many entrepreneurial ideas is experience: deeply knowing an industry, customer problems, supplier problems helps you to identify unaddressed needs, or to have seen options tried and failed before.