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By Andrej Rusakov The criticism of technology start-up “cloners”, who take innovative but proven business ideas from the U.S. and copy them in Europe, Latin America, and China is raging. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs claim that “me too” companies discourage innovation as they limit initial innovator’s upside and thus prevent true entrepreneurs from launching new ventures. Venture Capitalists, however, do not seem to mind, and continue to pour increasingly large funds into copy-cats (e.g. Samwer brothers recently raising $700 million), viewing them as lower risk compared to “new-idea” start-ups as the product/market fit has already been validated in “me too” companies. Who is right here? Do “me too” businesses add value to the society? Can their founders be called entrepreneurs or are they simply executors? Innovation Adopters? From a societal point of view, copy-cats do add value. They foster competition and bring innovative products to new markets fast. Why should a billion people in I...

by Anonymous I have constantly found myself thinking through the new lean startup concepts throughout this class and wondering how they could be successfully applied to large organizations. The definition of a startup and a large corporation are completely different in every critical way: access to capital, human resources, brand awareness etc. And yet, large corporations are constantly trying to find ways to “incubate”, develop, promote and support lean startup methodologies. Over the past few years, I have seen how two large companies have tried to create a “lean” environment within their companies. The common trade-offs are: Uncertainty vs. Scaling: Startups ideally try to reduce the amount of uncertainty through minimum viable products (MVPs), while corporations require accountable business plans and projections that force premature scaling and disincentives pivoting. Effectively there are rarely corporate structures or environments that even permit anything beyond setting a visio...

by Qingxi Wang The core of lean startup practices is hypothesis testing process, a systematic approach for validating a new business’ proposed business model. With appropriate adaption, this systematic approach could and should be used for new business development in big corporations. Meanwhile, there is likely to be significant extra challenges during the process. There are generally three main stages in developing a new business in a big corporation – concept stage, design stage and launching stage. During the concept stage, a new idea is proposed and basic technical and economic analysis is done. In the design stage, a business plan is drawn, which includes the team structure, operational process and solutions, sales model and detailed economic analysis. After winning some buy-in of the business plan, the new business might be launched. During the launching stage, hypothesis for the new business model need to be tested. A systematic approach for validating and revising assumptions i...

By Brad Bonnett  How do I apply all my learning’s about lean startups such as finding product market fit with a minimum viable product if I don’t have an initial problem that I am trying to solve?  I know that I want to build something that changes the world but I continue to struggle to find what product or service I want to build.  During our class with Fred Wilson he said that “If you have an idea that you can't get out of your head, do a startup. Otherwise join a startup.”  Although I appreciate the simplicity of this view and the experience that Fred brings to the table I am dismayed to think that unless I stumble upon an idea that really sticks with me I am going to be excluded from starting my own company.  Therefore I tried to put together a process that can help inspire innovation for those of us who are lacking an idea to create that “next big thing!” I tried to take the best practices that I have learned from my Managing Innovation class at HBS and ...