Strategyn Ventures (ODI)

Outcome-Driven Innovation^® (ODI) is our methodology. We use ODI to help our companies develop breakthrough products. ODI was developed over two decades and refined through extensive quantitative analysis. It has created breakthroughs in nearly every industry because it transforms innovation from an unstructured process into a rules-based discipline with measurable inputs and outputs.

Below are traditional myths about start-up innovation and the truth based on ODI’s track record.


The innovation process begins with a creative idea.	The innovation process does not begin with an idea at all. It begins with the collection and prioritization of all the criteria that will be used to judge the value of an idea. With these inputs, idea generation is focused, enabling entrepreneurs and companies to increase their chances of devising breakthrough products and services.
Entrepreneurial passion & vision are the keys to start-up success.	Passion and vision are important, but they are not enough. The key to start-up success is a product that meets customer needs. Failure to understand customer needs is the reason 90% of all new products fail and why only 11% of all venture-backed companies get to liquidity.
New addressable markets can be discovered with top-down or bottom-up solution analysis.	Addressable markets should not be defined or quantified by the product or service. They should be defined based on the customer need. Without a proven definition of a customer need and a rigorous market definition based on that need, companies struggle to identify and quantify new addressable markets. As a result, they risk launching products that are likely to fail.
Companies must be customer focused in order to succeed.	Companies must focus on the job the customer is trying to get done – not on the customer – in order to succeed. The job must be the primary unit of analysis. A focus on the customer and the competition offers no guarantee of success.
Customers often do not know, or can not effectively communicate, their actual needs and requirements.	Customers know, and can communicate, their needs perfectly well. The problem is that companies do not know how to define “need” or how to listen to customers. This is the number one reason new products fail. Unless the job is the unit of analysis and all inputs adhere to strict rules regarding structure and format, companies are capturing the wrong inputs into innovation.
Innovation, by its very nature, is a disorderly, trial-and-error process that cannot be organized.	Innovation, like any other business process, can be organized. Companies have found it difficult because there is disagreement on just what innovation is, the sequence in which the process should be executed, and which inputs are needed to succeed. When innovation is executed in the correct sequence and with the right inputs, trial-and-error iterations can be reduced and the chance of success can be significantly increased.