Testing Business Ideas
Your Field Guide for Rapid Experimentation
“Calling all Corporate Innovators, Startup Entrepreneurs, and Solopreneurs!”
Tony - 5 Star Amazon Review
"A bible for testing business ideas."
Matt - 5 Star Amazon Review
“This helped me organize my new startup.”
Jessi - 5 Star Amazon Review
A practical guide to experimentation
7 out of 10 new products fail to deliver on expectations. Testing Business Ideas aims to reverse that statistic. In the tradition of Alex Osterwalder’s global bestseller Business Model Generation, this practical guide contains a library of hands-on techniques for rapidly testing new business ideas.
Testing Business Ideas explains how systematically testing business ideas dramatically reduces the risk and increases the likelihood of success for any new venture or business project. It builds on the internationally popular Business Model Canvas and Value Proposition Canvas by integrating Assumptions Mapping and other powerful lean startup-style experiments.
A definitive field guide to business model testing, this book with lead author David J Bland features practical tips for making major decisions that are not based on intuition and guesses. Testing Business Ideas shows leaders how to encourage an experimentation mindset within their organization and make experimentation a continuous, repeatable process.
This book is for…
Solopreneurs
You are working nights and weekends on an idea, but need to understand the viability of it. Use your time efficiently to engage in the right experiments. Communicate your ideas clearly through evidence and learn when to turn your side hustle into a business.
Corporate Innovators
You are creating new revenue inside a corporation, but it is risky and you don’t want to damage the brand. You need to clarify the testing process. Build your innovation practice. Communicate evidence and progress to stakeholders. Find the next best test.
Startup Founders
You are thinking big, but want to test small. Identify the biggest risks to your business. Reduce risk by generating concrete evidence. Communicate evidence and align with co-founders or other stakeholders. Place small bets to grow your business on the right path to scale.
Still undecided?
Table of Contents
Prepare
Design the team (p. 3)
Shape the idea (p. 15)
Test
Hypothesize (p. 27)
Experiment (p. 41)
Learn (p. 49)
Decide (p. 59)
Manage (p. 65)
Experiments
Select an Experiment (p. 91)
Discovery (p. 101)
Validation (p. 231)
Mindset
Avoid Experiment Pitfalls (p. 313)
Lead Through Experimentation (p. 317)
Organize for Experiments (p.323)
Turn Strategy into Your Next Better Decision
You’ve explored the concepts. Now let them help you extract assumptions, prioritize risk, and design real experiments with confidence.