Three Books for Learning to Build an Early Stage Startup Business

Greetings from Innovation ACT, where Canberra's tertiary students are learning business principles for start-ups. Mr David Elliot, Managing Director of Agile Digital Engineering Pty Ltd, recommended three books:

1. The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development: A cheat sheet to The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Brant Coope and Patrick Vlaskovits, 2010.

   Entrepreneurs need to think of customer segments and the features which will appeal to each, tested through customer validation. The scientific method can be used to test the idea.
   (#CustDev)

2. The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, by Eric Ries, 2011.

   Ries advocates applying the lean manufacturing method and Kanban to startups. Also advocated is the Minimum Viable Product.

3. Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers, by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, 2010.

   This book advocates writing out all the business assumptions, on a business model canvas.

I have to admit being skeptical about the use of techniques developed in the hard sciences and engineering to business.

From an idea to a business

Greetings from the Australian National University Commons in Canberra where Innovation ACT 2012 is holding its first event "Moving from idea to business", with Hamish Hawthorn of ATP Innovations.

ATP Innovations is an incubator at the Australian Technology Park in Sydney. The Australian National University is one of the owners of the business and ATP Innovations is looking to set up a Canberra presence shortly.

ATP is in the old Eveleigh Railway Workshops, which I wrote about in 1998 as an example of innovation (the National ICT Center of Excellence was lather set up along the lines I suggested at the ATP).

Hamish used the analogy of a racing yacht crew for the needs of a business startup. He then used flightfox.com and Marathon Targets as examples of a successful startup. He discussed sustainable competitive advantage, disruptive business models and execution excellence.

Innovation in Canberra

Greetings from the Australian National University Commons in Canberra (which is so new it still has a "new car" smell) where Innovation ACT 2012 is being launched. This is an annual completion to encourage the commercialization of ideas. The event was started in 2008 by PHD students at ANU and now includes ANU, University of Canberra, the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) and Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT). Sponsors includes Fujitsu, Microsoft and the ACT Government.

Students and staff of the institutions form teams to develop an idea. The program
has a series of seminars to help the teams prepare a Business Plan, Marketing, sales and sales forecasts, Legal issues, Managing Growth and Exit strategy. The teams compete presenting pitches to expert panels. The first prize is $20,000. Also the ANU has a venture find to invest up to $1M on good ideas.

Some of the students participate as part of their formal program of study, but most are doing it just for the experience.

The Innovation ACT program has been improved over the years (previously I have mentored teams and talked at the event). However, one limitation remaining with the format is that attendance in person is required, thus excluding online students.