“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital…
No such thing as a new idea? “There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations.” Mark Twain On the one hand this…
I recently ran a Growth Sprint which builds on the AJ&Smart model described here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td0ap… The main difference was that the group I was facilitating was not from one single company. Everybody at the table had their own business or side hustle they were looking to grow. I adapted the model and the end result…
When “together alone” has two meanings The term “together alone” is used to refer to parts of group exercises where people will work quietly to prepare their own ideas or research to be shared with the rest of the group later. I recently held a growth sprint for small businesses owners. They were “together alone”…
The levers of growth In order to grow your company, you need to focus on the levers of growth: Acquisition, Activation, Revenue, Retention and Referrals. But how do you know where to focus? Which lever matters the most? It’s time to get analytical and laser focused on where your efforts can contribute the most growth.…
The Blue Ocean Strategy by authors W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne reminds companies to swim away from competition. Circque de Soleil, Nintendo and Casella Wines all use the SCAMPER principle Eliminate to great commercial success.
At the intersection of Design Sprints and Growth Hacking Design Sprints are repeatable and quick ways for teams to generate novel and useful ideas. Growth Hacking is the process of running experiments intended to improve the components of growth from acquisition to referrals. Put these techniques together and you have a repeatable growth recipe for…
Stay out of the red water The authors of the book The Blue Ocean Strategy are contrasting the wide open waters with the red ocean, the ocean seething with the blood of fierce competitors. They argue that instead of facing competition head on, you should strive to find new, uncharted opportunities. Their prescription has a…
Dot voting is a great technique for reaching a decision when a team has many options for solving a problem.
What is a dot vote? Dot voting has been used by meeting facilitators since the 1980s and is a big part of the design sprint method pioneered by Google Ventures. Dot voting is a quick and easy way for groups to settle on a consensus. The method is transparent and gives everybody on the team…