- Until recently, in many peoples' minds,
design amounted to an aesthetic exercise.
However, while design can have an aesthetic impact
that is neither its primary objective
nor its greatest value.
Appropriately leveraged,
design can deliver many forms of return on investment
to a business.
Design can empower an organization
to capture new market opportunities faster,
to extend its reach across current markets
and into new ones,
to engender deeper relationships with its customers,
to develop internal innovation capabilities
and ultimately, to reinvent itself
to capture disruptive new market opportunities.
When we speak of business invention and reinvention,
we're speaking of entrepreneurship
and entrepreneurship poses its own unique challenges
and uncertainties.
We often speak of the constraints of entrepreneurship,
particularly the constrained resources
and constrained timelines
and we need to address these in any approach
to launching a new venture.
However, there's also a significant lack of constraint
that we need to address simultaneously.
A great power of design resides
in its ability to help us to make decisions
and find solutions both under
seemingly suffocating constraint
as well as in the dizzying absence of constraint.
This is where Venture Design excels.
Venture Design is an approach to leveraging design
in the creation of new businesses,
from zero to launch.
It's still a human centered design
and leverages the design thinking, prototyping
and iterative processes
that you've likely already encountered
but it's been tailored to the time constrained,
resource constrained high uncertainty context
of entrepreneurship.
As such, it is invaluable in starting smarter,
iterating faster and establishing crucial design
and strategy capabilities
that support a new venture's growth.
The impacts of Venture Design can be dramatic.
Immediately on the heels of our work,
our clients and portfolio companies
have gotten clarity on their larger vision and purpose,
made crucial changes to their course strategy
to align their business priorities and practices
to their core differentiation,
value proposition and purpose,
hone their brand and messaging
to project their intent and value to their key audiences,
launched successful new products to market,
driven significant awareness via major earned media,
prestigious design awards
and traction with key influencers and end customers,
sign large sales, distribution and partnership deals,
raise new rounds of funding from internal resources
or external investors on advantageous terms,
progressed organizational development
building internal structures and methodologies
often including ramping up their own design
and innovation capabilities.
All of these are key components of overall traction
for an early stage venture.
Beth Comstock, the vice chair of General Electric
recently said,
"what business needs now is design.
"What design needs now is making it about business."
I agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment
and it parallels a belief that I developed
through my own experience as a designer and entrepreneur.
Through design, we launch stronger startups.
Through entrepreneurship, we become better designers.
The first half of this might feel like
I'm stating the obvious.
Design is now widely understood to be a key contributor
to the success of many of our biggest
and best know startups.
The second half however I don't think
is discussed nearly enough
and it represents a major opportunity for designers
to expand their capabilities and impact.
Together, they form a virtuous cycle.
Venture Design lives at this intersection
of entrepreneurship and design
and I think you'll find it to be a very valuable
and timely tool.