New ideas based on high-technology research have a high failure rate because they hit the ground running with lopsided priorities and misalignments. Students complete this course with an Innovation Creed (“Why are you doing this?”) and a customized Idea Filter (“Are you working on the right priorities?”)—2 simple tools that steer concept-stage commercialization to success.
Interview with Andrew Ainslie, Dean of the Simon Graduate School of Business
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From the course by University of Rochester
Technology Commercialization, Part 1: Setting up your Idea Filtering System
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University of Rochester
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From the lesson
Week 2 - Why so hard?
Top reasons why commercializing technology is so difficult
Meet the Instructors
Mark WilsonLecturer in Entrepreneurship
Simon Business School
Thank you very much for taking some time to answer some questions about
technology commercialization in, in general.
To what extent do you think the, the business commercialization side
understands really what goes on in a research laboratory and,
and the type of activity there?
>> Yeah, I think that understanding is pretty rare.
I think that's the downside or the unfortunate part of this, and
every now and then a few companies really get lucky and really start nailing it.
>> So, another question.
Early in innovation, at the concept stage, how are frameworks helpful at that point?
>> I think frameworks can be interpreted in a,
in a fairly broad set of different ways.
Let me give you a super simplistic version of what a framework might be.
So every time a pilot takes off on an aircraft, or lands on an aircraft,
they have a checklist which they look at and they do it on every single flight.
Now, some of those people have been out there flying a thousand times, but
every time they land they're looking at their checklist when they come in to land.
Why is that?
Because when things start getting hectic in that cockpit,
it's very easy to miss something.
Maybe you forget to put the undercarriage down and
you end up making a huge mess of the runway.
Well, business is very much like that,
in that very often you're sitting in a situation where, as you're getting closer,
say, to the launch of a product, things become so
hectic around you that you start losing focus on a couple of critical things.
Maybe for example, you haven't done enough consumer research, and
anybody who's going to take a class of marketing is going to realize
the importance of collecting that consumer research.
So you leave that step out.
It's just like forgetting to put the undercarriage down on an aircraft.
And what these frameworks do is provide you with a set of
steps to make sure that you cover the bases before you introduce your business.
That's a simplistic framework, it's an important one but it's a simplistic one.
>> Yeah, I, I like the analogy of the panic almost, too.
There's far too much to do.
You can't do everything and you shouldn't do everything up front, but you're better,
you better remember to sometime get back to some of these basic things.
>> And, and it becomes innate.
So once you start using these frameworks over and over again, it just becomes a,
a part of your checklist every single time you go into business or
trying to make a decision.
And that way you're just far less likely to miss some really critical details.
>> What's your experience with the more innovative companies?
If we take this if we take, you know, some of the students watching this or maybe
working in larger companies, or trying to bring a new framework into big companies.
What can you say about the larger, more innovative companies as far as
innovation frameworks for new product development pipeline?
>> I think that the one thing that you'll notice is at some point a move
towards a more structured approach to thinking about these things.
A lot of smaller companies, you know, don't have that mixture of business
experience and understanding of particular scientific, or engineering problem.
So frankly, they sort of shoot from the hip a little.
And I think a lot of mistakes get made, some wonderful things come out of that,
but a lot of mistakes get made along the way.
And I think as companies get bigger what they begin to do is they begin to,
if you will manage risk more carefully.
And they're managing risk by trying to make sure they don't make any
big mistakes or missteps when they take products out to market.
So you start seeing them using an increasingly structured approach to
taking products to market.
Well, you know, if you think about it, just, we use frameworks in science and
in engineering in much the same way we do in business, in that,
in some sense, if you think about it, Newtonian physics is a framework.
And then off of that basic framework, that basic rather simple set of ideas about
motion and bodies and, and, and how they interact, we start building
up this incredibly complex understanding of a whole set of physical interactions.
Well, we're trying to do the same thing in business.
Let's say you walk into a venture capital, fund, and you're trying to
convince them of the way in which you want to approach a particular business problem.
Well, they will have received the same sort of business training,
which we're going to impart through some of these courses.
So when you walk into that VC fund, the fact that you
both share a framework means that you can start communicating much faster.
It also shows them that you've done some due diligence on the problem because
you've thought about this in a systematic way that the business world has come to
understand is a really good way to think about that particular idea.
This stuff doesn't just come out of thin air.
It's not natural.
We're not born with it.
It's not innate.
So spending some time understanding what these frameworks are,
is going to allow you to communicate better with those VC firms,
with companies that you're going to want to interact with,
perhaps your suppliers, or perhaps people you're providing services to, so
that they understand that you're all talking a common language.
Very, very important part, I think, of what we're going to try to get across to
scientists and engineers who are moving into the business world.
Steve Jobs used to love making cracks about how he never did any
marketing research, and and they had some unbelievable products and there's no doubt
that he created some unbelievable IP during his time leading Apple.
But at the same time,
it's interesting that he's about the only example that we have of that.
If you speak to most CEOs of most companies they'll talk about how
important that structured approach is.
Think it's important not to get too hung up on the couple of people who talk about,
oh this stuff isn't important.
It's important.
>> So along those lines, somebody says geez,
I want to risk it all, I want to start a company.
I'm going to take all my family money, all that.
Do you think it would be worthwhile for them to sit down and
reflect themselves and with their friends and significant others as to why are they
really doing this, and how long are they going to do it, and how much risk is risk.
And are they going big or going home or
are they just going to try to have a really nice little lifestyle business.
>> Yeah, I think that's really important.
And I think actually, one of the advantages of tools like the ones
that we're developing here at Rochester is to let people, let entrepreneurs,
let people that are beginning to come up with some ideas,
be able to watch some of these videos and think about some of the pitfalls so
that they can be honest with both themselves and with their early
investors to make sure that they stand a reasonable chance of success.
>> The engineers and
scientists want to over-analyze in general, if we pick on them.
They are in analysis paralysis because they want to get the perfect answer.
Picking on the business folks, they're like don't, don't,
don't confuse me with a bunch of facts, I've already made my decision.
I'm going here.
You know.
And stop analyzing.
We got to stop the analysis, we're going to have to make a decision.
How would you compare and contrast, or how do you, how do we blend that together to
make the right team moving forward in a, say a start up company?
>> I would say that I've actually seen both sides make that mistake.
>> Okay.
>> So I've seen some amazingly talented scientists and engineers just wanting
to jump straight to, for example, let's just pro, let's go straight to production.
We don't need to do any testing on this because we know this is
a brilliant device.
>> Yeah. We made one.
>> We could make 100,000.
It's not going to be a problem.
>> Exactly, and we know what the customer wants.
And, you know, we know this better than the customer.
Why should we speak to the customer?
And and on the flip side, I've seen business people begin to do so
many analyses, using so many frameworks at some point you gotta say stop.
You know, let's go back to the beginning and
make sure we actually do get an idea at this year, not in ten years time,
because everybody's going to run out of money by then.
So I think both make that set of mistakes.
And it's finding that middle ground that's difficult.
I think there's an analogy here also between the engineering world, or
the science world, if you will, and the business world.
Because in engineering, and
science as well, you need a mixture of that set of frameworks, if you will, and
some intuition about which ones are going to be the most useful.
Because if you sit there checking off every single framework,
just like as a scientist if you sit there checking off every possible way you
can think about a particular problem, you can end up sort of paralyzed, if you will.
And it's experience that gets you to that point.
This is another example, I think, where both sides bring something to the table.
So the business people bring together experience in having looked at
a bunch of different business problems.
Scientists' experience in having really thought about their particular set of
problem, their field, very broadly so
they're able to jump to the answer, the sort of optimal point of
the answer more rapidly using a mixture of intuition and frameworks on both sides.
And that can be sort of the most useful way to get to a quicker, better answer.
>> So to what extent are business schools are changing?
>> Well, I think in a lot of ways they're not changing very much.
And that's good news, because in essence I think nowadays we have a really, really
well-established set of principles that are important to make sure the business
world works in this more efficient manner, so that the best ideas do come out and
the worst ideas are tossed away at a good early stage.
I think the part that is changing, and, you're looking at it right now, is in our
approach to, if you will, democratizing education to a certain extent.
So we are seeing more and
more programs like this where everybody can start getting some idea of
what the business principles are that they should really worry about in a really,
relatively inexpensive way, perhaps sitting in their living rooms.
And that is really beginning to change the world.
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