Category: Design Thinking

Lessons in Entrepreneurship - Reagan Pollack

Ask yourself, why this particular startup, now?

In today’s highly competitive, and frankly oversaturated world, simply launching something new isn’t enough to secure your spot in the top of someone’s mind. As an entrepreneur, we need to get past our ability to launch a new product or service, and before we even begin, ask a simple question – why now? Every successful …

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Uber, Lyft & AirBnb – the Access Economy of the Future

Everything you want – just one click away The promise of Web 2.0 circa 2004-2007, characterized by a major structural shift from top-down content generation, to bottom-up content creation and dissemination across new platforms, gave rise to a new way of thinking about the creation and delivery method of valuable information and access. With social …

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The Future of Work, disrupted by Design Thinking

“We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.” ~ Jeff Bezos What exactly is a customer experience, and when does it start and end? If we take a moment to zoom out …

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Reagan Pollack

3 days ago

Reagan Pollack
In 2005 while attending Babson College business school, I set out to launch my first internet startup. The vision was to build a platform (back then it was called a web portal) that would connect the music industry and expedite artist discovery (A&R), facilitate new business deals, and bridge the fragmented music business ecosystem. The goal was large, but in order to accomplish it, without prior experience nor significant connections, I broke the mission down into manageable tasks and chunks. This not only helped lay the foundation but also helped me to prioritize which elements would be needed first and subsequently.At graduation, I headed back to Silicon Valley and began my adventure full steam by opening an office, raising capital, and hiring my first ten team members. With a business plan in hand, I had a clear roadmap from an operational and financial perspective, and by spending significant time constructing the website wire-frames, it helped me to better stress test my assumptions with real-world pre-customer feedback. While most of the business plan didn’t materialize the way I had envisioned, it did help me greatly to strengthen my resolve for the vision and gain confidence that the end goal was material. I implore founders today to spend a few weeks writing down their vision and breaking into daily tasks, and the rank them in order of importance - ask yourself “if this comes first, does this unlock value next?” “If this comes next, does this expedite the next phase on my list?” The best (fastest to get to market and grow) entrepreneurs think in phases and are incredible at prioritizing tasks to reach the next tranche of milestones. Being in a startup can be dizzying - there a dozens of potential features to build, hundreds of people to pitch, and time is your enemy. Practicing prioritization - the ability to truly rank each activity by its weight (value) to drive actual traction - will ultimately position your business to win cost efficiently and market effectively. #nostartupleftbehind #entrepreneur #startups #entrepreneurship #founderstory ... See MoreSee Less
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