Discovery Lab
Homework 12
Business Models
Introduction
Smart companies fail to keep up with changing markets. Why? Drucker, and the paradigms he helped to build (e.g., lean startup, agile, etc…) is more interested in assumptions than he is about money. His Theory of the Business can be boiled down to a single sentence: assumptions of what a firm gets paid for. That’s it.
In keeping with this simplification, in this activity, you’re going to answer some fundamental questions about what you’re working on. This should help you and your team focus intensely over the next few weeks on getting a one-unit of your idea done.
Instructions
Read Peter Drucker’s Theory of The Business:
According to Drucker, there are three parts to any business:
- First, there are assumptions about the environment of the organization: society and its structure, the market, the customer, and technology.
- Second, there are assumptions about the specific mission of the organization.
- Third, there are assumptions about the core competencies needed to accomplish the organization’s mission.
In the context of your application, answer the three assumptions above in a few sentences.
Now read Paul Graham’s thoughts on Startup Lessons:
Based on the article above, in a few sentences, tell us the minimal feature that you’d like to work on to release before the end of the course. Assume this is version 1 of 1,000,000.
