How To Innovate Against Your Competitors with Alex @ Strategyzer.com - Escape Velocity Show #21

About this video

Dan Martell interviews Alex Osterwalder, co-creator with Yves Pigneur of the Business Model Canvas, about competing on business models rather than products. Osterwalder traces the work from his PhD, finished in 2004, to self-publishing the book in 2009: 470 people paid to participate, with the price doubled repeatedly to $250, and 70 pages were given away free before Wiley published it a year later. At Strategyzer, he argues companies must both manage the existing business and invent the future. Innovation is not one big bet: citing early-stage venture capital, he says 250 projects are needed for one outlier returning 50 times capital, so firms should make many small bets, shelf about 50% after 6 to 12 weeks, and fund only evidence. Early stages might cost $5,000 to $10,000 per team, rising to $50,000 and later $500,000 as teams are cut. He stresses testing assumptions — ‘what needs to be true for this idea to work?’ — across desirability, feasibility, viability and adaptability, and favours models where others do the work, like Facebook, IKEA and Apple’s App Store.

Key takeaways

• Compete on a superior business model, not only on product, segment or pricing.
• Run innovation as many small bets: about 250 projects are needed to produce one outlier, per the venture figures cited.
• Fund follow-on stages only on evidence, shelving roughly half of projects after the first 6 to 12 weeks.
• Ask ‘what needs to be true for this idea to work?’ and test desirability, feasibility, viability and adaptability.
• Look for lock-in, recurring revenue and patterns where others create value in your business model.

Episode details: published February 13, 2020 · 45:42 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dan Martell’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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