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When the Founder Is the Rainmaker: How to Scale Without Losing the Spark
In many founder-led businesses, the founder isn’t just the leader—they’re also the best (and often only) rainmaker. They land the big deals. They have the trusted relationships. They know the pitch inside and out because they are the pitch.
It works—until it doesn’t.
As the business grows, this model creates a bottleneck. Every new opportunity depends on one and only person. And it’s the same person every time. But there’s a downside. When that person is also responsible for running the business, mentoring the team, and shaping the vision, something eventually gives.
The Innovator’s Dilemma – Fast, Correct, or Both?
Mon, Aug 15, 2022 — Most people would say Tesla is an innovative company. Others would say maybe they push the envelope a bit, for example, with “self-driving” software that is truly amazing but is not yet fully “self-driving.” The other side of the coin is other companies who wait until an idea is thoroughly tested, I’s dotted, and T’s crossed, fully qualified but maybe at the cost of missing the market. Innovation is the lifeblood of growth in any industry or channel. Companies with high levels of innovation do better over time than companies that do not have it. So how to address the Innovator's Dilemma? Is it one or the other? Here are four ways to think about it:
What Does it Take to Innovate? Part 6: The Product Launch
Tue, Feb 8, 2022 — By Ahmet Abaci and Beth Somplatsky-Martori Ready for ignition? If you’ve stuck with us for this entire blog series, it’s all come to this moment: Butterflies be damned and dreams and hopes aside – it’s time to launch our new product into the public consciousness. We’ve been on quite a journey through our previous blogs. At the outset, we started off with a discussion about fostering a culture of innovation within a company. And then we introduced what we called our “Stage Gate Lite” approach to fostering and accelerating new product and service ideas, leading you through the four gates in the process: Concept development, the business case, product development, and testing methodology.
What Does it Take to Innovate? Part 5: Choosing a Development Methodology and Testing, the Second and Third Phase Gates
Fri, Oct 1, 2021 — Why innovate? Your business depends on it. By Ahmet Abaci and Beth Somplatsky-Martori In the first blogs in this series, we talked about how to get started with innovation and ideation, and building a business case – essential components in what we are calling the “Stage Gate Lite” approach to fostering and accelerating new product and service ideas within your organization. Now it’s time to talk about what happens when the rubber hits the road. And trust us – this can be a very messy part of the process. We are reminded of a quote from that famous innovation guru, Mike Tyson, who once said that “everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” At this point, though you may have some glancing blows aimed in your direction, we hope in this blog to give you some processes on how to handle this turmoil and maintain your course.
Why Innovate? How SMB Product Companies Grow
Thu, Jun 10, 2021 — Part 4: Business Case – The Second Phase Gate By Ahmet Abaci and Beth Somplatsky-Martori As we prepare to discuss the second phase gate needed to validate your new product idea – the business case – first, a juicy story. You may remember a while back hearing of a new company that was going to revolutionize the process of delivering freshly squeezed fruit and vegetable juices to the masses. Named Juicero, the product hinged on a Keurig-like drink machine that would turn bespoke packets of fresh ingredients into the kind of juice you’d get from an extractor – without the mess and the need to raid the local farmer’s market.
Why Innovate? How SMB Product Companies Grow
Thu, Jun 3, 2021 — Part 3: Concept Development – The First Phase Gate By Ahmet Abaci and Beth Somplatsky-Martori It takes more than luck, randomness, or the alignment of the stars to achieve success. Reaching our more earth-bound goals requires studious planning, hard work – and the ability to narrow our focus in the face of the shiny objects that compete for our attention
Why Innovate? How SMB Product Companies Grow
Fri, May 28, 2021 — Part 2: Harnessing Entrepreneurial Energy For Improved Success By Ahmet Abaci and Beth Somplatsky-Martori The road to nowhere is littered with loose ends: Half-finished projects, great ideas that died on the vine, and wasted resources that chipped away at profitability and the bottom line. In a world where startup energy and entrepreneurship are prized, there certainly is no lack of passion about that “one great thing” that is going to transform the company and change the world.
Why Innovate? How SMB Product Companies Grow
Fri, May 14, 2021 — Blog 1:Introduction to What it Takes to Innovate By Ahmet Abaci and Beth Somplatsky-Martori Sometimes, there’s a razor-thin margin between success and failure. In the world of shaving, this is more than a figurative statement. Just ask the folks at Gillette, which dominated the $3.5 billion market for razors and accessories for more than a century. At Gillette, innovation mostly consisted of adding the occasional blade to its disposable cartridges, but there was little incentive to otherwise rock the boat of its delightful recurring-revenue model (after all, hair continues to grow, whether we want it to or not).
Innovation, Part 2: Finding the Discipline Needed to Reinvent and Reinvest
Thu, Jan 28, 2021 — What does it take to be a change agent in a world that doesn’t stop changing? My last blog on change and innovation referenced Billy Joel, and you may recall his song, “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” essentially a history lesson of the 1940s through 1980s in three minutes. If we asked The Piano Man to write a tune forecasting the 2020s, it would likely last an hour – and still not cover everything.
Innovation, With a Purpose: Use 2020 as a Springboard for Change
Fri, Jan 22, 2021 — Alas, it was many moons ago that one of my favorite musical artists, Billy Joel, sang those insightful words: “Don’t go changing to try and please me.” No matter how eloquent or visionary he might be, the “Bard of Brooklyn” couldn’t have foreseen that a pandemic would all but mandate change as a means of business survival. Now we must all go changing, to try and please EVERYONE. Fueled by the ongoing digital revolution, lockdowns, economic turmoil, and a global financial shakeout, we can generally agree that the tried and true has given way to the untried, and new.