Prototypes

Over the past 25 years, two disciplines—the discipline of business planning, and the discipline of business strategy—have developed a set of concepts that when combined, offer a powerful template to help build high-potential business ventures.

From business planning we can compile a list of criteria that answer the question: "Is it a business?" The field of business strategy contributes criteria that answer the question: "Can you keep it?" The criteria in these two main steps are expressed in 15 sub-questions, and together form a venture "template" that is especially useful to new ventures, and a very powerful tool to help to diagnose and improve ongoing or troubled ventures.

Essentially, the New Venture Template™ utilizes a sample set of viable venture attributes combined into venture viability templates to identify and observe necessary venture characteristics. The process is somewhat similar to the forensic evaluation of a partial strand of human DNA that supports a legal judgment.

The assessment of a partial set of venture characteristics such as those found in the New Venture Template™ —as a sample of a venture's genetic material—can provide entrepreneurs and investors with the capability to make the business judgments that distinguish viable from less-viable ventures.

There are common or "prototypical" configurations of sets of answers to the fifteen questions. These are known as Venture Prototypes. They are positioned on "Business (B) / Keep It (K)" graphs and range from "Research Project" on the low end, up to "Model Venture" at the top.

The New Venture Template™ examines the pattern of answers to the fifteen questions and identifies the degree to which the venture is similar to each of the prototypes. A 100% correlation to a prototype would represent an exact or perfect match. The closest that ventures correlate to any of the prototypes is typically 65-85% — meaning that the venture is NOT actually one of these business types, but is most like the prototype to which it correlates most closely.

The fundamental characteristics of each venture prototype are described, along with specific knowledge and targeted strategies for its improvement (where venture attributes are either weak or missing). Mapping a venture against its closest known prototype leverages this knowledge into a powerful and prioritized approach to moving the company toward becoming a "HIGH-POTENTIAL" venture.

In a perfect world these fundamentals of a well-built venture would be in place at the outset. In a practical application, the venturer and investors should put substantial effort toward addressing these fundamental venture variables prior to the investment of significant financial and human resources . If not, then additional risk is inherent in the venture.

Ultimately a script can be developed for the venture, outlining what actions will be taken to keep the venture on course from launch to maturity.