IDEA EVALUATION

Seven Domains Model by John Mullins

§The New Business Road Test :
What entrepreneurs and executives should do before writing a business plan

§John Mullins: Professor, at London Business School and the University of Denver. MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a PhD in Marketing from the University of Minnesota.

A Word of Caution

§If you are fundamentally in a lousy business, you will not get very far irrespective of the efforts and the talent.
§No matter how talented you are and how much capital you have, if you have not given your idea a rigourous, critical examination before starting out, you could be heading for a disaster.
§When you buy a car, you take it for a test ride. Why not do the same for your idea?
§Most businesses fail in less than two years
§Fewer than one percent of the business plans submitted to VCs get funded
§Business failures lead to huge “collateral damages”
§Failures are planned by lack of planning

Top Level Issues

§Are both market and industry attractive?
§Does the opportunity offer compelling customer benefits as well as sustainable advantage over other solutions to the customer needs?
§Can the team deliver the results they seek and promise to others?
§Markets and industries are not the same things
§A Market consists of a group of current and/or potential customers having a willingness and ability to buy products (goods and services) to satisfy a particular class of wants and needs
§A market is a set of buyers (individuals, firms) and their needs. Not to be confused with products
§An Industry consists of sellers – typically organizations – that offer a product or a class of products that are similar and close substitutes
§“Space” or “Sector” are dubious words – they confuse market and industry (Internet space, biotech space)
§Judgments about attractiveness of the market one proposes to serve are very different from attractiveness of the industry in which one plans to compete
§Both micro and macro level considerations are important – markets and industries must be examined at both levels
§Keys to evaluating entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial teams are not simply found in their resumes or in their entrepreneurial character

What are these Seven Domains ?

§Market domain – macro level
§Market domain – micro level
§Industry domain – macro level
§Industry domain – micro level
§Team domain – aspirations
§Team domain – execution capability
§Team domain – connections or networks

§Seven domains are not equally important
§A simple scoring sheet will not work
§Wrong combination of domains can kill a venture
§Sufficient strength in some domains can mitigate weaknesses in others – good opportunities can be found in not-so-attractive markets and industries

Market Analysis – Macro Level

§Overall market – size (number of customers, aggregate money spent, number of usage occasions) (Secondary data from trade publications, business press)
§Where is the market on the “S curve” – is it nascent, growing or saturating (infer from historical data)
§Trends in broad categories – demographic, socio-cultural, economic, technological, regulatory
§Miller Light Beer, 1975 – Baby boomer, health consciousness
§Hero Cycles, 1983 -- Population growth and distribution, fuel efficiency, pollution norms, four stroke engines (Fill it, shut it, forget it)

Market Analysis – Micro Level

§Target segment benefits and attractiveness – customers buy benefits, not products or features.
§Large market of entertainment – audio -- MP3 players, MP3 players in cars, home systems, memory sticks
§How large is the segment and how fast it is growing – combination of primary and secondary data
§Who you would like to be your FIRST customer – can you name him
§Clearly differentiated solution with value delivery unambiguously stated
§Does an entry in a segment facilitate lateral entry in other segments -- Nike Shoes

Industry Analysis – Macro Level

§Standard Industry Classification (SIC codes) – retailing, food, software, logistics ….
§Positioning is not obvious (MP3 player makers – electronics or entertainment) -- narrow industry definition ignores substitutes
§Suppliers, Buyers, Incumbents, New Entrants, Substitutes
§Competitive rivalry, threat of entry and substitutes, bargaining power of buyers and suppliers
§Which of these forces are favourable and unfavourable (SWOT analysis)

Industry Analysis – Macro Level

§Is it an attractive industry – certain industries are perpetually sick and others are cyclical
§Does the industry as a whole have entry barriers, economies of scale, technology lock-ins
§Every time an industry doubles its size, a new structure for it emerges – consolidation or disaggregation (hospital – basic and support services)

Industry Analysis – Micro Level

§Sustainable competitive advantage – How long will your edge last ?
§IP Protection – patents, copyright, trade secrets
§Superior organizational processes that are difficult to replicate
§Economically viable business model – availability of finance for long term and working capital, contract enforcement and revenue collection cycles

Team Analysis

§Financers give as much importance to team as ideas.
§Accepted wisdom – Ideas come dime a dozen, who will execute?
§Aspirations, motivation and propensity for risk taking
§Ability to execute on critical success factors (CSFs) – unique to each industry market segment – better, cheaper, faster
§Connectedness up, down and across the value chain – ability to move from Plan A to Plan B, identification of the CSFs of the industry

The Next Topic would be Market Analysis