Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Intrepreneurship vs. Entrepreneurship

I attended a lunchtime panel by the Northern California chapter of the Product Development Management Association (PDMA) last Wednesday. Very high quality event—I can’t say that about all of them, but this one had good panelists, good questions, and good food (most important thing!).

One question came up about how rigorous we need to be regarding product management for new product development. In particular, the question concerned the difference between a startup environment and a large company environment.

Someone made the point that rigor is more important in a large company because there are more constituents involved. In a startup you usually just have a handful of people and a limited set of customers; there is less coordination required.

A panelist made the counter point that when you’re developing a new product, you’re almost always working in a small team; even in a large company, what the new product initiative boils down to is a small, entrepreneurial team within the corporation. That sounds about right to me, but I disagree with the next thing he said.

He said that since big companies are rigorous about requirements gathering and other product management functions AND big company new product development actually happens in a small team, therefore startup teams should take product management rigor as seriously as in a big company.

It seemed logical to me at first, but then I got to thinking about it. There seems to be a big difference in the degree of newness you have to deal with in a startup. A new product initiative in a big company is most likely going to be an improvement on something the company already does. You’re not starting with a blank sheet of paper in a big company the way you are in a startup. (If it were a blank sheet, the big co probably wouldn’t support it and someone would leave the company to do it as a startup.)

From what I’ve seen, in a big company, a new product initiative has to be integrated with an existing product, or it addresses a big new requirement from an existing customer base. Generally it is attempting to extend the technology or broaden the solution for the customer base. I think the need for rigorous requirements gathering stems from this. If you’re going to extend something, you have to define what you’re extending and explain how what you’re building interfaces to it. If you’re broadening the solution for the customer base, you have to go out and survey as many of the existing customers as possible, talk to your sales people, etc. All that interaction means you need documentation.

I think it’s different in a startup, at least in the case of a Disruptive Innovation where there is little definition to your market. Maybe you can’t even tell who all the customers are. There may not be any competitors and therefore no generally accepted features that must be in a product of your category. There might not even be a category yet. It’s a blank piece of paper.

That’s why what we’ve been using at my startup company is a single piece of blank paper to track requirements. It’s based on an idea David Bayless of Evergreen IP shared with me, the 8.5” x 11” Prototype. We write down all the ideas we think matter and we shop it around. As we shop it around to our customers and potential customers, we make some things more important, we make some things less important. We add new ideas. We (sometimes) cross out ideas.

Then we give it to our developers who tell us what’s feasible to do in a given period of time. They’re a great team that’s been there, done that. They know how to fit the features together, improvise and solicit feedback when appropriate. I think the level of skill you have at your disposal in a startup is another factor that makes rigorous requirements gathering and PM functions less important in a startup team than in a big-co new product development team.

I saw this again the other day when I interviewed an engineer at Oracle who came in through a startup acquisition. The candidate was ready to quit because Oracle was suddenly slapping all kinds of process & control on the acquired team. The candidate wanted to get back into a startup situation where developers have more responsibility for the requirements gathering, interpretation, design, implementation, and validation. I guess they felt the big company processes stifled the creativity in a startup.

I’m no expert on this stuff, but it just seems this way from what I’ve seen. What do you think?

4 Comments:

Blogger Lucy Wang said...

Hi Michael,

Good insight on the innovation within big companies. You can also check out "The other side of innovation" by professor at Tuck -VJ. Himself is helping GE to transform and innovate. I worked at startup as well as BIG company leading innovation projects, and completely agree with you on how hard it is to start innovation with 'Nothing", and that blank 8*11 is usually where innovation starts. I am second year at Sloan and I met with Professor Hippel not long ago, he is amazing! I would love to chat with you more about innovation and how to bring more of your experience back to school. Shoot me an email please, yylucy@mit.edu. Cheers! Lucy Wang

12/02/2011 2:47 PM  
Blogger 梁爵 said...

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10/28/2019 1:37 PM  
Blogger 1234 said...

なことを聞いてきます。チェンジできるようですが、逆に「私でいいか?」と自分も聞いてしまいたくなる程、テンションが上りました。(中略)ベッドでは初めからGを装着されてのフェラーリ。可愛い姫にされるとすぐにフルボッキになります。騎乗位からスタート。一旦解除してから正常位で再び○体。狭い施術台だと厳しいですが、ベッドですので思う存分腰を振って発砲しました。台湾風俗処理してもらった後は、シャワーで洗ってもらい、服を着で思う存分腰を振って発砲しました。処理してもらった後は、シャワーで洗ってもらい、服を着て片言の英語で会話をしました。時短は無いようで、コールがあるまで話をしてました。と、小姐がノックをして入ってきます。ここで、問題なのが、台北では小姐を全員の中から選べないということ。裏サウナの暗がりの部屋の中、一瞬の判断で小姐のカオ、スタイル、性格を見抜く台北風俗必要があります。時間にして2秒くらいだと思いますが、ご自身の勘を頼りにして、瞬間で判断してください。もし、気に入らなかった場合は、「チェンジ」、「ノー」、「不用(ブーヨン)」と言えば、黙って部屋から出て行って、すぐ新しい小姐が来ます。何回でもチェンジできますから遠慮せずに好みに合う人を待つことが重要です。基本的には台北のサウナは歳が30オーバーがほとんどだと思いますが、その分プレイ内容はかな 世界中で夜遊び 新着情報 台湾夜遊び隊台湾(台北)

12/29/2019 4:25 PM  
Blogger 梁爵 said...

2020.07.08酒店小姐的基本介紹跟工作內容酒店計算[1節190元],[時薪1080元],[日保6000元]
酒店小姐上班通常會取什麼名字?一般為一星期為一個結算薪水的單位,班別以(週報班)可以上3~5天班 當然天數越多 節數錢越多 收入也跟著水漲船高。
酒店兼差不是一個複雜的工作環境?尤其特別族群大學生/上班族選擇酒店兼職酒店兼差,可依照白天課業或工作因素來配合晚間的班別! (1週上1天班 也可以的)
我在酒店上班的日子營業時間下午3點~早上6點 這期間上滿6~7個鐘頭 看各家店規定不一 時段都可自選。
以下打卡班次:
下午:3點班、4點班、5點班、6點班 (每個班次往後推7小時,就是妳的上班時間)
晚間:7點班、8點班、9點班 (每個班次往後推7小時,就是妳的上班時間)
--Part-Time--無門檻, 無條件, 無天數 想賺現金的朋友,請把握時限。
不敢來酒店上班-酒店打工的原因
不簽合約,不押證件,不給壓力。[酒店兼職賺到現金~想離開就離開]
2020酒店小姐去酒店上班都一定要出場接s嗎?
大學生了沒酒店兼差酒店兼職徵才大活動,不影響白天課業為原則以及不延遲白天主業進度。
Part-Time兼職酒店打工100%

7/07/2020 1:24 PM  

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