IDENTIFYING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

IDEA GENERATION
IDEASCALE SYSTEM
OPPORTUNITIES
MULTI-VOTE
BUSINESS MODELS
MULTI-VOTE
PREDICTION MARKET
DATA COLLECTION BUSINESS CASE & POA
EXPERIMENTATION SIMULATED CAPITAL
MARKET

INDEPENDENT
PROJECTS

P5
EXIT BY JANUARY,
2014

TUESDAY 17TH TUESDAY 24TH

APRIL, 2012 APRIL, 2012
SESSION #12+13 SESSION #15+16
THURSDAY 5TH
APRIL, 2012
FRIDAY, 23RD SESSION #8+9
MARCH, 2012
SESSION #5+6
7TH – 15TH 17TH – 19TH
MARCH, 2012 MARCH, 2012
SESSION #2-#4

750+ opportunities ~250 Opportunities ~50 Opportunities ~25 Concepts ~12 Experiment Design ~12 Business Cases ~0-2 businesses
identified by submitted by pitched by developed by and Reporting by by teams of 4 launched
individuals Individuals individuals teams of 2 teams of 4
COURSE INFORMATION
PROFESSOR KARAN GIROTRA
TECHNOLOGY & OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT,
ASSISTANT: ANSA MOHAMMAD
WWW.INBOINSEAD.COM
COURSE STRUCTURE
Identifying New Business opportunities (INBO) is an experimental
workshop that combines three novel approaches to
Innovation/Entrepreneurship: Business Model Innovation , Idea
Tournaments and Lean Startups. Business Model Innovation is a
novel technique to identify entrepreneurial opportunities via
innovating the business models in existing competitive industries.
Idea Tournaments is a process that leverages the wisdom of the
crowd for entrepreneurial opportunity generation, selection and
refinement. Lean startup philosophy prioritizes tasks to limit
entrepreneurial risk. Taken together, these approaches are in
contrast to the conventional serendipitous, solitary process of
entrepreneurship and instead provide a systematic risk-limiting
pathway to realizing entrepreneurial outcomes.
As a class, we will follow these techniques and jointly start one or
more new ventures. We will use the principles of renaissance
innovation to generate about 1500 new business opportunities and
through a variety of selection mechanisms, we will filter and
develop these opportunities until a handful of outstanding business
concepts remain. Students who have entrepreneurial passions will
be encouraged to take these concepts forward with a team of
classmates in P4/P5. The plan is illustrated on the preceding page.
Alumni of this course have gone on to develop multiple successful
businesses and have realized significant financial gains from the
ideas generated and developed during this course.
IDENTIFYING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, #2 © KARAN GIROTRA
WARNING
Alumni describe this course as a twisted combination of
American Idol, The Apprentice and The Survivor. Outside of
reality television, this is highly unusual. It is also totally and
completely voluntary, and optional elective. More alumni
feedback is on the next page.
The techniques, tools and approaches followed in the course are
all derived from recent and ongoing research. Like with any alpha
product, the course structure and exercises may change during
the course.
COURSE WORK
The context of searching and refining an entrepreneurial idea
provides many rich problems with which to develop the tools and
methods in the course. Thus, all work for this course is focused
on real problems related to advancing the business concepts we
will generate. Each exercise will help us refine and help take our
business concept to the next stage. There is no "make work“, or
make believe exercises for this course. Of course, real work is
often much more demanding than make-work, thus participants
should budget an exceptional workload from the course.
GRADING
The primary gain from the course is learning a systematic, risk-
limiting technique for entrepreneurship. Nevertheless, a grading
scheme is mandatory:
► Class participation and attendance (25%),
► Simulated Capital Market Performance (10%)
► Individual work. Peer Evaluation (10%) + Professor Evaluation (5%)
► Group work. Peer Evaluation (30%) + Instructor Evaluation (20%)
INSEAD
REPRESENTATIVE ALUMNI FEEDBACK
Course Objectives
► “I took this to learn about a new way to manage innovation (from business/consulting objective). This was achieved but I also learnt how to
be a better communicator (oral and written), idea generator, team manager, and ultimately discovered deep entrepreneurial desires that I
had no idea I had in me before I did the course. Finally, through the competition I become a lot closer to my classmates, so much more than
any other activity I have done at Insead (academic or otherwise)”

Work Load
► “As hard as you want to make it. Not as bad as ACF but it gets close. To be honest it was a pleasure to work on the pitches and prototypes”

Relevance and Experience

► “I learned quite a bit and think it is imperative to continue this class in the future. It is not an entrepreneurship class, but it touches on a lot
that is relevant for entrepreneurs.”
► “This course has further inspired me to pursue entrepreneurship in my career”
► “This class has given me the single most valuable learning experience I've had at INSEAD. Insights on calling out BS, insights on developing a
business model. Insights on presentation skills, Entrepreneurship. I know this course is resource-intense, but the amount of learning it gives
and the potential for generating successful entrepreneurs should justify its institution as a core course instead of an infrequently-offered
elective … I can't say enough for it”

Professor
► “I enjoyed that the professor is sharing his insights fresh from his research activities, and appreciate that the material is still being developed
in part based on the classroom experience.”
► “He conducted a very interested and engaging course in which the students were motivated to present their ideas and listen to other’s ideas.
Everybody was there to learn and have fun in the process.”
► “very effective”, “cogent”, “repetitive”

Disclaimer:
Students quoted above are all from class of J’09 and j’11. Comments are replicated with no editing (except for spelling mistakes).
To eliminate any selection biases, You can download Full Feedback here (every comment ever made about the class)

IDENTIFYING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, #3 © KARAN GIROTRA INSEAD

COURSE STRUCTURE: TOURNAMENT AND CLASS SESSIONS
IDEA GENERATION

IDEASCALE SYSTEM
OPPORTUNITIES
MULTI-VOTE
BUSINESS MODELS
MULTI-VOTE
PREDICTION MARKET
DATA COLLECTION BUSINESS CASE & POA
EXPERIMENTATION SIMULATED CAPITAL
MARKET

INDEPENDENT
PROJECTS
CLASS
ACCESS TO ANGEL
INVESTORS
P4-P5
Idea Generation Selection Refinement EXIT BY JANUARY,
2013

BUSINESSTM ODEL
UESDAY 8TH
TASK FRIDAY 11TH PROTOTYPING AND
FEBRUARY, 2011 EXPERIMENTATION
ANALYSISJANUARY, 2011 PRIORITIZATION
SESSION #15+16
SESSION #12+13
THURSDAY 27TH
JANUARY, 2011
THURSDAY, 20TH SESSION #8+9
JANUARY, 2011
SESSION #5+6
8TH – 13TH 14TH – 17TH
JANUARY, 2011 JANUARY, 2011
SESSION #2-#4

BUSINESS MODEL INNOVATION AND LEAN STARTUP THINKING

TOURNAMENT EXERCISES

STAGES KEY DELIVERABLES

IDEASCALE SYSTEM • 5 Ideas Selected from 15 or More generated ideas

• 120 second presentation of business opportunity

OPPORTUNITIES • 1 page graphic describing business opportunity.
MULTI-VOTE

• Business Model Analysis

BUSINESS MODEL CLARIFICATION • 240 second presentation highlighting why your
MULTI-VOTE opportunity is novel and value creating
PREDICTION MARKET • Naming/Branding/Social Media exercise

• Highlight Key Uncertainties

BUSINESS PLANNING
• Task Prioritization
EXPERIMENTATION
• Experiment Design
• Salient elements in a 7 minute presentation

DATA AND BUSINESS CASE • Experiment Results

SIMULATED CAPITAL MARKET • Learnings, Iterations, improvements
• Plan of Action
Investor Presentation
INDEPENDENT PROJECTS

IDENTIFYING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, #5 © KARAN GIROTRA INSEAD

COURSE POLICIES- I
CLASS PRESENTATION POLICIES

► You will get as many as 4 opportunities to convince your classmates of the potential of your business idea.
► For each of these opportunities, we will follow a very strict time limit (including your setup time). Please bring your own timer, to
help you stay within the limits.
► You are required to submit powerpoints for these presentations the day before the class. We will announce a random
presentation schedule at the start of class. Any time you take to setup will be deducted from your presentation time.
► The classes will be in a standard INSEAD classroom. Take into account the available technology and reliability of INSEAD IT as you
plan your class presentations.
► You bear final responsibility for ensuring the presentation works, and dealing with any unexpected events.
► I will strongly advise to not use proprietary software, animation, etc. in the early rounds of the tournament. In later rounds, when
you have more time for presentation you are encouraged to use videos, role plays, etc.
► Some pointers on making good presentations are provided in Appendix I.

► It is equally important to attend presentations from other participants and give constructive and thoughtful feedback.

OVERFLOW DEMAND- I COULDN’T GET INTO THE CLASS

► If you could not get into the class, you may still attend class sessions, tournament presentations (as long as there is physical space
in the room).
► While in class, you are expected to follow all the same rules as those registered for class- i.e. show up on time, prepare, etc.
► We have limited class time, sufficient only to play the tournament with those registered for the class. This means you can not
participate in the central class experience, the tournament. You will not be able to submit your ideas to Ideascale or in any
further round of the tournament. You will also not be able to get feedback from others.
► I will try to make the class syllabus and readings as public as I can (as long as I don’t receive a violation of copyright notice.)

IDENTIFYING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, #6 © KARAN GIROTRA INSEAD

COURSE POLICIES - II
RESPECTING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND ETHICAL BEHAVIOR
► The ideas generated and shared are assumed to be the property of those who submit them. The originator may enter any
mutually agreed contract with other team members.
► Of course, basic ethical behavior is assumed.
► These ideas should not be shared outside of the class without the permission of the originator.
► No idea should be replicated within the class.
► In the event of a breach of these rules, disciplinary action under the rules prescribed by INSEAD student policies may be initiated.
► In my experience with similar courses at INSEAD and Wharton– I have not seen any breach of the above expectations;
Nevertheless given the multi-campus structure and no judicial precedence with respect to a course like ours; I can not guarantee
that if these expectations are breached there will be water-tight legal protection.

TEAM FORMATION
► The course starts with individual work, we re-organize in teams of two after session 5+6 and again into teams of four after session 8+9.
► This process is designed to identify the most promising opportunities and to re-allocate our resources to these opportunities.
► If your idea is not eliminated, you will be responsible for finding new members of your team. Put differently, you are now given the right
to integrate more team members to work on your idea. if your idea is eliminated you will need to pair up with a surviving project/team.
► For logistical and class-scheduling reasons all pairs must be formed within the same section. However if you can find a counterpart
from the other section to swap your place, you can change your section to reach the section where your ideal teammates are based.
Inform the secretary of the course swap, and cc me and all concerned students.

► Learning Objective: I understand that some of you may not be able to find your ideal team mates and partners. However, I think the
ability to recruit talent after your idea has been granted more resources, and the ability to become a productive and useful part of a
new startup team are all necessary skills for any aspiring entrepreneur. This team formation exercise will help build these skills. Some
alumni find hiring, working with and managing other individuals to be one of the most useful parts of the course experience.
► Startups have far higher turnover than regular companies and successful leaders in startups work under all circumstances. You are
unlikely to be able to assemble your dream team in your venture. I believe, the course experience is in fact a more pleasant team
situation than at any startup that I have observed.

IDENTIFYING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, #7 © KARAN GIROTRA INSEAD

SESSION OUTLINE: KEY TASKS AND DATES
Always check latest version at inboinsead.com

# Title Prior Preparation Follow up Work

(Before Class) (After Class)
1 Myths of Enrepreneurship Course Outline, Prior Business Websites Start thinking of business Ideas, Add blogs
(Tu, 6th March) RenaissanceInnovator.com Join course Facebook group “INBO @ INSEAD”
2 Opportunity Generation I Where do the best ideas come from? Generate 5 Ideas
(Th, 8th March) Ch-2 from Why Not?; PoBronson, Hotmail
3 Opportunity Generation II How to Build Risk into your Business Model? Generate 5 more Ideas
(Tu, 13th March) Setup IdeaScale Account
4 Opportunity Generation III Generate a further 5 ideas
(Th, 15th March) Submit best 5 Ideas at Ideascale (23h, 16th Mar)
Evaluate > 100 opportunities (23h, 19th Mar)
5+6 Opportunity Pitches Email graphic (PDF) and pitch by 9h, 22nd Organize into teams of 2 by 23h, 27th Mar
(Fr, 23rd March) Mar.
7 Business Model Analysis Better Place Prepare for next round of elimination
(Tu, 27th March)
8+ 9 Business Model Clarification Powerpoint Slides, 9h, 4th Apr Register for Prediction Market (23h, 5th Apr)
(Th, 5th April) Naming work, 9h, 4th Apr Start trading on Prediction Market (ASAP)
Organize into teams of 4 (23h 11th Apr)
10 Task Prioritization Segway Case Do task prioritization and uncertainty task
(Tu, 10th April)
11 Experiment Design Revisit task prioritization and design cheap
(Th, 12th April) experiment
12+13 Experiment Presentation Powerpoint slides, 9h 16th Apr Pilot Experiment Run
(Tu 17th April)
14 Entrepreneurship! Final Experiment Run, Data Collection and Analysis
(Th, 19th/20th April)
15+16 Data based Business Case Prepare Final Investor Presentation Course Drinks (TBC)
(Tu, 24th Apr)

IDENTIFYING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, #8 © KARAN GIROTRA INSEAD

1. THE MYTHS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP

REQUIRED READING:
1. Course Outline (latest version on the course website,
www.inboinsead.com)

OPTIONAL READING:
1. Read as many posts as possible on our blog,
RenaissanceInnovator.com

PROJECT ASSIGNMENT (COMPLETED INDIVIDUALLY BEFORE

START OF NEXT CLASS):

1. Join Course Facebook Group “INBO @ INSEAD”

2. Add blogs renaissanceinnovator.com , techcrunch.com,

springwise.com, venturebeat.com to your favorite RSS reader

3. Start thinking of some new business ideas. For purposes of the

course and for your future entrepreneurial career, the most
valuable businesses are those that:
• Do not involve any novel technology or new product
design.
• Require relatively limited capital investment and a few
weeks of effort to get to a validated business concept.
• Serve markets that include 25-35 year-old
professionals, and not some hard to access niche
market.
Our course methodology will only allow us to test such ideas

IDENTIFYING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, #9 © KARAN GIROTRA INSEAD

2. OPPORTUNITY GENERATION I
FUN READING:
1. "Where the best and worst ideas come from?", MIT Sloan
Management Review Interview with KG. Contains
synopsis of KG’s research on idea generation. Full paper
available via SSRN
2. "Good Ideas and How to Generate Them?", Chapter 2
from book "Why Not?: How to use everyday Ingenuity to
solve problems Big and Small" by Barry Nalebuff and Ian
Ayres. Buy book at Amazon. (Also available in the course-
pack)
3. "Could anyone have thought up Hotmail?" Book Excerpt
from "The nudist on the late shift" by Po Bronson. Buy
book at Amazon. (Also available in the course-pack)

Sketch from one of Thomas Edison’s lab notebooks.

PROJECT ASSIGNMENT (COMPLETED INDIVIDUALLY BEFORE START OF NEXT CLASS):

1. Based on techniques learned in class today, generate *at least* five opportunities for a new business. An opportunity is a novel match
between a customer need and a solution to that need. The novelty arises from identifying latent needs, new solutions or superior
ways of “delivering” the solution to the need. For purposes of the course and for your future entrepreneurial career, the most
valuable businesses are those that:
• Do not involve any novel technology or new product design.
• Require relatively limited capital investment and a few weeks of effort to get to a validated business concept.
• Serve markets that include 25-35 year-old professionals, and not some hard to access niche market.
Our course methodology will only allow us to test such ideas

2. For each of the opportunities, generate a descriptive title and an exciting 50 word description. The description should identify the
novel element– the need, solution or delivery mechanism and make a strong pitch for the business opportunity. Save titles and
description. Email titles and descriptions only to inbo2012@gmail.com. You will be required to enter them into a web-based system
in a few days.

IDENTIFYING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, #10 © KARAN GIROTRA INSEAD

3. GENERATION II: RENAISSANCE INNOVATION- BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
REQUIRED READING:
1. “How to build risk into your business model", Karan Girotra and Serguei
Netessine, May 2011, Harvard Business Review. Available only in course-
pack for copyright reasons

PROJECT ASSIGNMENT (COMPLETED INDIVIDUALLY BEFORE START OF NEXT

CLASS):
1. Based on techniques learned in class today, generate *at least* five
opportunities for a new business. For purposes of the course and for your future
entrepreneurial career, the most valuable businesses are those that:
• Do not involve any novel technology or new product design.
• Require relatively limited capital investment and a few weeks of effort to
get to a validated business concept.
• Serve markets that include 25-35 year-old professionals, and not some
hard to access niche market.
Our course methodology will only allow us to test such ideas

2. For each of the opportunities, generate a descriptive title and an exciting 50

word description. The description should identify the novel element– the need,
solution or delivery mechanism and make a strong pitch for the business
opportunity. Save titles and description. You will be required to enter them into a
web-based system in a few days. Email titles and descriptions only to
inbo2012@gmail.com.

3. You should have received an email invitation to our web-based high throughput
idea screening system (http://inbo.ideascale.com). Reply to the invitation and
setup your Ideascale account. Familiarize yourself with the interface.
Note: Invitations will be sent to your INSEAD account. Only registered
The Coronation of the Virgin 1502-3, by Raphael
students will receive an invitation.

IDENTIFYING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, #11 © KARAN GIROTRA INSEAD

4. GENERATION III: RENAISSANCE INNOVATION – OPPORTUNISM
FUN READING:
1. TBA

HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT (COMPLETED INDIVIDUALLY AFTER CLASS):

1. Based on techniques learned in class today, generate *at least* five opportunities
for a new business. For purposes of the course and for your future entrepreneurial
career, the most valuable businesses are those that:
• Do not involve any novel technology or new product design.
• Require relatively limited capital investment and a few weeks of effort to
get to a validated business concept.
• Serve markets that include 25-35 year-old professionals, and not some
hard to access niche market.
Our course methodology will only allow us to test such ideas

2. For each of the opportunities, generate a descriptive title and an exciting 50 word
description. Save titles and description. You will be required to enter them into a
web-based system in a few days. Email titles and descriptions to only
inbo2012@gmail.com.

3. You have now generated over 15 opportunities. Select the best 5 of these, and
submit at http://inbo.ideascale.com. All Submissions should be completed before
end of the day 16th March (Local Time). Do not rate opportunities now.

4. Sometime after 16th March, visit http://inbo.ideascale.com again and vote on *at
least* 100 different opportunities. You are encouraged to vote on as many
opportunities as possible. All ratings should be completed before the end of day
19th March (Local Time).

IDENTIFYING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, #12 © KARAN GIROTRA INSEAD

5. OPPORTUNITY PITCHES
PROJECT ASSIGNMENT (COMPLETED INDIVIDUALLY BEFORE
START OF CLASS):.
1. Consider the IdeaScale data for the opportunities you identified.
You can access this data by logging back into IdeaScale. Based on
that data, your own beliefs and passions, and any additional
investigation you have done, select one opportunity to pitch to
the group in class today. THIS OPPORTUNITY MUST NOT BE ONE
THAT SOME OTHER CLASSMATE HAS IDENTIFIED, UNLESS YOU
OBTAIN PERMISSION FROM A CLASSMATE TO USE THEIRS. You
are free to choose an entirely new opportunity that was not
identified by any other classmate.

2. Prepare a < 120-second pitch and a single PowerPoint/PDF

slide for one opportunity. (The nice thing about a 120-second
pitch is that you can practice it 15 times in just 30 minutes. Please
do!). Use the presentation to convince your classmates that there
is a legitimate, untapped, profitable business opportunity.
Typically, at this stage you need not make a business case, but
you just need to excite the class about the opportunity and your
capabilities. A pitch could be direct advertisement of the
product/service to the class.

STUFF TO HAND IN A DAY BEFORE CLASS:

1. Email to inbo2012@gmail.com no later than 09 AM Thursday March 22nd, 2011: A single Powerpoint slide (1 page graphic)
describing your opportunity (.pdf, .ppt or .pptx formats only). We will integrate this slide into a single deck for use in
class. (Please make sure to include your name on the slide and your last name in the file name.). PLEASE AVOID ANIMATION.
Make sure your graphic is an attractive and appealing. It will be your main advertisement medium (point 2 below). The
Appendix of this outline contains some resources to help you make good business presentations.
There is no need to cc anyone else for any course homework submissions.

IDENTIFYING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, #13 © KARAN GIROTRA INSEAD

5. OPPORTUNITY PITCHES (CONTD.)
CLASS LOGISTICS:
1. Please bring a timer or any other device that will help you
pitch the opportunity to class in 120 seconds. You will have
exactly 120 seconds and at the end of 120 seconds, you will be
forced to stop.

2. At the end of class today, we will stick all one-page

opportunity slides on the walls, and ask the class to vote on
their favorite opportunities. The 24 opportunity-
entrepreneurs that receive the most votes will be selected for
further development.

3. If you are one of these 24 entrepreneurs, you are *required*

to partner with another student registered for this section of
the class. If you absolutely must partner with someone in
another section, one of you will need to *swap* sections with
a corresponding person in another section. Send an email to
inbo2012@gmail.com no later than end of the day March 27th
with your new team. If you cant find a partner, send me an
email and I will try my best to find you a partner.

4. If your idea did not make it, you need to partner with
someone whose idea makes it to the next round. If you can’t
find a partner, send me an email and I will try my best to find
you a partner.

5. The working unit from now on is the team and not the idea,
thus you and your team-mate are free to pursue any idea
whatsoever for the next stage. It will be the same after every
elimination round.

IDENTIFYING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, #14 © KARAN GIROTRA INSEAD

7. BUSINESS MODEL ANALYSIS: BETTER PLACE INC.
FUN READING:
1. Is Better Place Really Better? INSEAD Case. (Download here)
2. Buket A., Girotra K. and S. Netessine, “Electric Vehicles with a Switching
Station: Adoption and Environmental Impact”, Working Paper. (Download
here) Only available for download.

PREPARATION WORK:
1. Visit the website of Better Place, www.betterplace.com and familiarize
yourself with the concept of the business and the hype associated with
the business.
2. Analyze the business model of Better Place. What is the value
proposition, the revenue streams, the cost streams, etc.
3. How does the business model of Better Place compare with its
“competitors” Hint: Compare with conventional EVs and Gasoline
Vehicles
4. What makes better place novel and value creating

PROJECT WORK :
1. Using Business Model Canvas, define the business model of your
proposed venture.
2. Compare your business with competitors or the state of the world. What
is required to make your business value creating?

IDENTIFYING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, #15 © KARAN GIROTRA INSEAD

8. BUSINESS MODEL CLARIFICATION “Will the dogs eat the dog food?”
- Almost any venture capitalist
HELPFUL READING:
1. Girotra, Karan and Ulrich, Karl T., Empirical Evidence for the Role of the Domain Name Itself in Website Performance (November 25,
2010). INSEAD Working Paper No. 2010/98/TOM. Download from SSRN (only available for download)

PROJECT ASSIGNMENTS (COMPLETED AS A TEAM OF TWO):

1. Business Model Clarification: In the previous elimination round, you identified a business opportunity. In this round, you need to:
1. Clearly outline your business model. Use the business model canvas.
2. Show that your opportunity is value creating– that is the customers willingness to pay will be higher than your costs of
provision. To prove this, it might help to analyze three aspects of the business model:
1. The revenue model (key market segments, size of the segments, the pricing policy in the segments, the willingness to
pay of the customers),
2. The costs model (fixed, direct and indirect costs, per unit-cost at different levels of volume.
3. The customer acquisition strategy (how will you acquire customers, and how much will it cost you to acquire them)
3. Clearly identify what makes your opportunity novel. List all potential competitors, incumbents, etc. and highlight what
differentiates your business from them. Again the business model canvas will serve you best.
You will have to convince your classmates of these analyses in less than 240 seconds.

2. Naming/Branding Exercise: Identify a name/branding for your business. I need you to come up with a business name and a four
letter ticker symbol, which we will use in our simulated capital market. Naming is a search problem very similar to our search for a
good business idea (recall the metaphor of searching for the deepest point in an ocean). I would suggest that for finding a good
name, you employ the same principles that are behind the idea tournament in our course: a) Generate a large number of ideas b)
select c) refine d) iterate till you have an acceptable solution. I would encourage you to generate as many as 50-100 names and then
sequentially select the winner. Some resources to help you with this:
1. Recent research by KG on what makes for a good name. Referenced above, Download from SSRN
2. Igor Naming guide 15-Igor+Naming+Guide.pdf

(CONTD. ON NEXT PAGE)

IDENTIFYING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, #16 © KARAN GIROTRA INSEAD
8. BUSINESS MODEL CLARIFICATION (CONTD.)
PROJECT ASSIGNMENTS (CONTD.)
3. www.lingzini.com , a website platform to help you generate names for your new businesses. (full disclosure: The
website was created by my co-author, collaborator and mentor, Karl Ulrich)
At this point, you may choose to buy a domain name, construct a wiki site, setup a business blog, establish a
Facebook/Twitter platform. You are encouraged to use social media aggressively as you try to win over the hearts of your
classmates
3. Presentation Practice: Prepare a four minute presentation covering the most salient features of the above analysis on business
concept clarification. Make sure that you consistently use and reinforce your newly created brand.
4. A prediction market will open at the end of the class where you can “invest” in any of these businesses. Picking good ideas can
be almost as valuable as generating new ideas.

STUFF TO HAND IN:

1. By 09H00, 4th April, email your PowerPoint slides to inbo2012@gmail.com. Also bring them to class on an USB Disk. You will
have one minute to setup. (Please make sure that you include your names on the slide and your last name in the file name).
Please provide only pdf/ppt/pptx formats. Keep in mind INSEAD IT technologies as you prepare your presentations. You will be
responsible for the conduct of your presentations.
2. Email to inbo2012@gmail.com an excel sheet/text file with all names that you considered for your business, no later than
start of the concept pitches class. Note if you use Lingzini, you can export your lists.

CLASS LOGISTICS:
1. Please bring a timer or any other device that will help you pitch the opportunity to class in 240 seconds. You will have exactly
240 seconds and at the end of 240 seconds, you will be forced to stop.
2. After the pitches by teams of two, we will have a detailed survey covering the business prospects of the presented ideas. Based
on the results of the survey, we will select only half of the projects to go forward. The results of the survey will be announced at
end of the day 8th April.
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE….

IDENTIFYING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, #17 © KARAN GIROTRA INSEAD

8. BUSINESS MODEL CLARIFICATION (CONTD.)
CLASS LOGISTICS (CONTD.)
4. At the end of class, a prediction market will open that will allow you to bet on the survival of
all 24 businesses. (see access instructions on next page). Use the time between end of the
class and the announcement of the results to make some bets in the prediction market and
realize some early gains!
5. If you are one of these 12 winning teams, you are *required* to partner with two other
students registered for this section of the class. If you absolutely must partner with a
student in another section, the student must find another person to swap sections with in
the section he/she wants to join. Send an email to inbo2012@gmail.com no later than end
of the day 11th April with your new team. If you cant find a partner, send me an email and I
will try my best to find you a partner.
6. The working unit from now on is the team and not the idea, thus you and your team are free
to pursue any idea whatsoever for the next stage. It will be the same after every elimination
round.
7. If your idea did not make it, you need to partner with someone whose idea makes it to the
next round. If you can’t find a partner, send me an email and I will try my best to find you a
partner.

IDENTIFYING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, #18 © KARAN GIROTRA INSEAD

ACCESSING THE PREDICTION MARKET

ACCESSING THE PREDICTION MARKET:

Visit the prediction market at www.inbomarket.com. Register for a new account using access code “inbo2012”. This market will
allow you to buy or sell contracts whose value is contingent on the performance of different business concepts demonstrated today.
Specifically, you will be able to bet on the probability of a company surviving to the round of last 4 . You will have an initial cash
allocation of 50,000 Monetary Units. You can put in buy or sell orders for any of the available contracts. The contracts will pay out as
the tournament progresses. Recall that 10% of the course grade depends on the value of your portfolio at the conclusion of this
market.

WNBT Will WannaBet February 84 3000 Active

survive the final 26th,
elimination? 2009

IDOL Will InternetIdol February 67 100 Active

survive the final 26th,
elimination? 2009

IDENTIFYING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, #19 © KARAN GIROTRA INSEAD

10. TASK PRIORITIZATION

FUN READING:
1. Vanity Fair article on Segway. Download here

PREPARATION QUESTIONS:
1. What did the Segway team do well in creating the Segway
Human Transporter?
2. What concerns do you have about the Segway approach to
innovation?

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11. LIMITING VENTURE RISKS: EXPERIMENTATION ON THE CHEAP
FUN READING
1. Steve jobs talk at Stanford. Download here

PROJECT WORK:
1. Based on the learnings from the task prioritization excercise, think of the
key uncertainties that your venture faces. Can you design experiments to
test them in some limited way?
2. Design small experiments to test out the key uncertainties. You are
encouraged to develop a business prototype. Recall class discussion on
what “business prototypes” are supposed to do. It is compulsory to get
your hands dirty at this stage. This means you need some real
prototyping and data. Arm chair analysis can lead to disqualification from
the tournament.
3. Over the next weeks, you will required to run some of these experiments
and report on the results of these to convince your classmates of the
viability of your business.
4. Useful Resources
1. Mechanical Turk: Human Intelligence Tasks
2. Google Adwords: Use for evaluating costs of acquiring customers
3. Google Analytics: Use for analyzing customer behavior on websites
4. Rent-a-coder : Outsource software development. Warning: may take more time
than the course permits
5. 99designs.com: Outsource design/branding tasks.

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12. EXPERIMENT DESIGN PRESENTATION
PROJECT WORK
1. Prototype Development: Prepare a business prototype for your product or
service, as close to a minimum viable product as possible. A prototype could
be a webpage, a physical device, or even a powerpoint presentation. However,
it must be developed enough so that you can do a real-life test of the key
uncertainties. For instance if the key uncertainty arises from the market
potential of the product, you must design a prototype that can enable market
testing, i.e. it should give the customer a "near life experience" with the
product or service.
2. Prepare a 4-minute presentation highlighting the key uncertainties, then provide a demo for your classmates of your prototype and
present a plan for experimentation.

STUFF TO HAND IN:

1. Email by 09h00, 16th April: Any Powerpoint slides you wish to use in class for your prototype presentation (.ppt/.pptx format only). We
will integrate these into a single deck for use in class. (Please make sure to include your names on the slides and your team name in the
file name.) You need not use Powerpoint if, for example, you will do a demo of website, physical prototype, etc. Please make sure that
any weblinks, files, etc. that you may need for your presentation are easily accessible within seconds on the Amphi computers. You
should arrive well in advance of class to set this up. After class starts you will have a maximum of 60 seconds of setup time and 420
seconds of presentation time.

2. Note that after the prototype presentations, each of you will be able to provide comments to other teams in the session. We will use a
form for that purpose and then cut and distribute them immediately after class. For reference, here is the form I have used
before.... Proto-Feedback-2008.doc

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14. COURSE PERSPECTIVES: THEORY, PRACTICE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP!
FUN READING:
1. Book Review, "The Wisdom of Crowds" by James
Surowiecki
2. IdiocyofCrowds.pdf, David H. Freedman in INC.
Magazine

PREPARATION QUESTIONS/HOMEWORK
1. What would be some of the challenges in running these
sort of innovation exercises in an organization? Should
organizations run these tournaments or not?

Map of the Dusty Mac Gold Mine

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15. BUSINESS CASE PRESENTATIONS
PROJECT ASSIGNMENT (COMPLETED IN TEAMS OF 4 BEFORE START OF
CLASS):
1. Experimentation and Limiting Risk: Use your prototype to obtain some real-life
data on the key uncertainties in your business. For instance- if you think the key
innovation/uncertainty is in the market addressed, then you may do a rigorous
market analysis. Key questions to answer with rigorous data would be
a) How big is the market for this product?
b) What are the costs of acquiring customers for this market?
c) What is the average revenue2.per user from this market?
► Note: The uncertainty in your business may be in the technology or the
business model, instead of the market. In which case, you will need to do a “What a puny plan.”
different kind of prototype and the above questions may not apply - The Humungus in Mad Max: The Road Warrior

2. Prepare a presentation communicating the results of your team’s work and seeking angel financing for the next phase of
development (If you don’t expect to need funding, then just pitch the business more generally). You should highlight the data
collected from your business prototype and point the class to at least one surprising insight that you gathered as a result of
your experimentation. Your presentation must be less than 7 minutes long.

STUFF TO HAND IN:

► Email your final presentation to inbo2012@gmail.com. Please make sure to include your names on the first slide and your team
name in the file name.

IDENTIFYING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, #24 © KARAN GIROTRA INSEAD

 Used with permission from copyright holder, Jessica Hagy, http://indexed.blogspot.com, 2008.

IDENTIFYING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, #25 © KARAN GIROTRA INSEAD

 APPENDIX I

INFORMATION DESIGN
 INFORMATION DESIGN
HELPFUL READINGS:
1. Chapters 4-6, from the Visual Display
of Quantitative Information by
Edward Tufte (I do recognize the
irony of giving you a bloated, lousy
B&W scan of these pages. You really
should buy the Tufte book.)
2. WIRED_Essays_On_Powerpoint.pdf
Tufte on Minard: Napoleon’s March to Moscow

FURTHER READINGS:
1. Interview with NYT graphics editor, for those really interested in information design.
2. Wikipedia article on Edward R. Tufte: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte
3. Stanford alumni magazine article on Tufte: http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2007/marapr/features/tufte.html
4. The Cognitive style of Powerpoint, Edward Tufte. Download here

STUFF TO CHECK OUT:

1. Pecha-Kucha ("puh-cotcha") ppt format
2. Dick Hardt's OSCON keynote in the "Lessig Style" (several hundred ppt slides...really)
3. Malcolm Gladwell's TED talk (excellent talk, but without a single ppt slide and lots of "ums")
4. Steve and Bill presentation style comparison.
5. Hans Rosling's interesting TED talk using data graphics.
6. Rosling's software now on web as Google Gapminder.
7. Richard Trumka (Secretary-Treasurer of the U.S. labor union AFL/CIO) talk on Obama and race.
(Trumka's talk is an archetypal political speech. Putting aside the specifics of the politics, the speech is undeniably powerful and
unquestionably moved the audience. What are the key elements of his approach? Could this approach be used in a business
presentation?)

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INFORMATION DESIGN (CONTD.)

SLIDES FROM OLD CLASS

03-Information Design.pdf

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION DESIGN RESOURCES:

1. An excellent example of visual representation of time-events: http://www.askdrmike.com/bestgrf.jpg More info on this
graphic: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/posters
2. Some examples of competently done graphics:
1. http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/02/29/multimedia/PRESENTATION_GRAPHIC001.html
2. http://www.nytimes.com/ref/sports/20070731_BONDS_GRAPHIC.html
3. http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/2005_NEWORLEANS_GRAPHIC/index_01.html
4. http://graphics.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/weekinreview/20070225_MARKEL_GRAPHIC.pdf
5. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/01/06/opinion/06opchart.large.gif
3. Graphic designers often use different kinds of Graph papers to ideate and brainstorm about their graphics. I am also
trying to use graph paper for all my writing needs. It keeps writing neat and thoughts coherent. You can print custom
graph papers here: http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/
4. Check out the graphic of the day section on Edward Tufte’s website http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/newet
5. www.gimp.org : A freeware substitute for Photoshop. When I have to do a data graphic, I typically create some basic
charts from excel (with Tufte principles), and then use them as sub-components of my data-graphic. Gimp is a good
software to put together the different elements: charts from excel, relational diagrams from a drawing software, (I use
PowerPoint’s rudimentary drawing abilities), maps/backgrounds and other visual elements. Also, excel 2007 provides
some cool new charting tools.

IDENTIFYING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, #28 © KARAN GIROTRA INSEAD