Assignment:
Q.1 As you know, innovation workshops focus on the idea of start-ups. You each are assigned to a start-up team and are going through what a start-up goes through. I wonder what you think of
(a) What is a start-up? Is it any different from established companies? What ways? (read Steve Blanks HBR article - it is on Angel in the 1st assessment folder)
(b) Based on (a), do you think Square (https://squareup.com) is a start-up? Explain by drawing reasoning from (a).
(c) Steve Blanks says in the article that business model is different from business plan. How? When do we use which one?
Q.4. We talked about the difference between need and solution. You may solve a problem, but that does not mean that you meet a core need. I would like you to discuss needs vs. solutions, and provide the need hierarchy for this company's solution to taking pills... Pillpack (https://www.pillpack.com) (30 pts)
(a) What problems are they solving?
(b) What need do they meet? And, what does the need hierarchy for Pillpack's solution look like?
(c) Do you think whether this is a disruptive innovation? What way [what are they disrupting]?
(d) What need findings techniques do you think that they used to come up with this service? [IDEO is the company who helped with the founders with their concept development stage].
Here is more info about Pillpack:
https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/04/cvs-and-walgreens-by-mail-pillpack-launches-a-full-service-subscription-based-online-pharmacy-in-31-states/
https://www.fastcodesign.com/3035866/innovation-by-design/pillpacks-new-dashboard-tries-to-tame-pharmaceutical-insanity#6
Please refer to Patnaik's Need Finding book and our related workshop discussions when answering the questions.
Questions:
(1) What do you think of marketing's role in today's world of innovation? Is that just a function or can't innovation exist without marketing?
(2) How innovation workshops deliver what you expect (tell me what your expectations are, and tell me which ones are met/not met, and why you think that way)? Briefly, discuss the quality of the workshops...