3 Keys for Small Business to Seize the White Space

Small businesses may best understand the benefit from white space, or business model, innovation.

Many have yet to see the first few steps to take on this journey and that these steps can be inexpensive, requiring no line entries on a budget or P&L report.

If you are one of those companies, then, maybe I have an answer and a resource for you:

Mark W. Johnson is Chairman of Innosight, a strategic innovation consulting and investing company with offices in Massachusetts, Singapore, and India. He's also the author of an excellent book: Seizing the White Space:Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal.

He shared an hour of his time, wisdom, insight, resources on business model innovation as a recent guest on my radio show. You can listen here.

I asked him:

What are three keys to insuring small business can always venture into their own white space?

And he answered:

1. Focus on real value. The first and foremost is to start with a real customer who has an important unsatisfied job to get done.

2.Embrace learning. Your first steps shouldn’t just be about developing the standard business plan. The plan is best served when answering:

• How will I best learn?
  

• What assumptions should I test?

The first business model that is formed is never quite right. They have to embrace learning.

3. Recognize that it will be about where you start and how fast you stage the effort. Companies that are starting up should not go to scale until they are clear about what they have learned. They are also confident on the knowledge side to overtake the assumption side so they can accelerate to become a large business.

You can read highlights from our conversation here.

Comments

[Ava Venson]

Perhaps, it would be also helpful to include that businesses should also start with practical goals. This is to ensure that every step the company takes is achievable and that risks and mistakes would be minimized.