New Venture Development Training Course

Participants can frame opportunities that connect customer demand with strategic intent.

• Strategic intent translated into opportunity domains and search boundaries
• Three Horizons model distinguishes core, adjacent, and transformational growth
• Problem statements specify customer, context, consequence, and desired progress
• Opportunity trees connect strategic outcomes with customer problems
• Constraints converted into design criteria, investment limits, and timing assumptions
• Initial opportunity hypotheses documented in a structured venture brief

Participants can generate and screen venture concepts against defined opportunity criteria.

• Trend signals gathered from technology, regulation, behaviour, and economics
• PESTLE analysis identifies external forces shaping opportunity timing
• Design thinking divergence produces multiple solution and business-model options
• SCAMPER prompts challenge existing products, processes, and delivery assumptions
• Concept cards capture target users, problem, solution, and benefit
• Weighted scoring ranks concepts against desirability, feasibility, and viability

Participants can identify priority customer segments and their unmet jobs.

• Segmentation separates users, buyers, influencers, and economic beneficiaries
• Jobs to Be Done identifies functional, emotional, and social progress
• Customer personas distinguish observable evidence from unsupported demographic assumptions
• Switching forces reveal push, pull, habit, and anxiety
• Early adopter criteria identify customers with urgent unmet needs
• Beachhead segment selection considers access, urgency, and purchasing capacity

Participants can plan and conduct ethical customer discovery research.

• Interview guides use open questions, recent behaviour, and concrete examples
• Problem interviews test current workarounds, costs, triggers, and consequences
• Discovery recruitment screens participants against target-segment selection criteria
• Consent, confidentiality, and data handling protocols protect research participants
• Observation plans capture workflow, environment, friction, and informal workarounds
• Interview notes coded into themes, evidence statements, and assumptions

Participants can judge whether customer evidence supports continued venture development.

• Evidence hierarchy distinguishes stated preference from observed purchase behaviour
• Affinity mapping consolidates interview findings into recurring customer patterns
• Problem severity scored through frequency, impact, urgency, and willingness
• Root cause analysis separates symptoms from underlying customer constraints
• Insight statements link evidence, interpretation, and venture implications
• Kill criteria define when a problem hypothesis should be rejected

Participants can assess market potential, competitive pressure and positioning options.

• TAM-SAM-SOM estimates market potential using transparent sizing assumptions
• Top-down and bottom-up sizing methods reconciled through sensitivity analysis
• Porter's Five Forces assesses competitive structure and profit potential
• Competitor mapping compares offers, channels, pricing, and target segments
• Substitutes include internal processes, informal solutions, and non-consumption
• Positioning statements define category, audience, benefit, and differentiation

Participants can design a customer value proposition supported by specific evidence.

• Value Proposition Canvas links customer jobs, pains, gains, and offers
• Pain relievers describe measurable reductions in customer effort or risk
• Gain creators specify outcomes customers value and recognise
• Benefit laddering connects features, functional benefits, and strategic outcomes
• Unique value proposition tests relevance, distinction, and credibility
• Message hierarchy aligns buyer priorities with proof points and claims

Participants can convert validated needs into testable solution concepts.

• Service blueprints map frontstage interactions, backstage actions, and dependencies
• User journeys identify moments of friction, value, and abandonment
• Feature prioritisation uses MoSCoW categories and evidence strength
• Concept specifications define user outcome, scope, exclusions, and constraints
• Design principles guide consistent choices under uncertainty and trade-offs
• Accessibility requirements considered during solution concept and prototype planning

Participants can construct and critique a venture business model.

• Business Model Canvas connects customers, value, channels, costs, and revenues
• Revenue models compare subscription, transaction, licence, service, and usage fees
• Channel choices assess customer access, cost, control, and conversion
• Key partners evaluated for capabilities, incentives, dependence, and governance
• Operating model choices define ownership, sourcing, capacity, and control
• Business-model assumptions prioritised by uncertainty and potential financial impact

Participants can define a minimum viable product that tests critical assumptions.

• Minimum viable product scope targets the highest-risk customer assumption
• Concierge, Wizard-of-Oz, landing-page, and prototype tests compared
• Prototype fidelity selected according to learning objective and participant risk
• MVP backlog separates essential learning features from future enhancements
• Build-buy-partner decisions assess speed, cost, control, and capability
• Ethical testing boundaries address customer harm, disclosure, and data protection

Participants can design experiments with measurable hypotheses and decision thresholds.

• Test cards state hypothesis, method, metric, threshold, and decision
• A-B testing compares alternatives while controlling key variables
• Funnel metrics measure acquisition, activation, retention, revenue, and referral
• Leading indicators signal customer behaviour before revenue results emerge
• Sample selection addresses bias, representativeness, and practical recruitment limits
• Experiment review converts findings into persevere, pivot, or stop decisions

Participants can set pricing hypotheses and assess venture-level economic viability.

• Value-based pricing links price to customer outcomes and alternatives
• Cost-plus pricing identifies margins but ignores willingness to pay
• Price sensitivity testing uses Van Westendorp and direct purchase questions
• Contribution margin separates variable costs from fixed operating expenditure
• Customer acquisition cost calculated from channel spend and conversion
• Lifetime value assumptions tested against retention, margin, and service costs

Participants can prepare financial projections and identify funding needs.

• Revenue forecast combines customer volume, conversion, pricing, and retention
• Driver-based models connect operational assumptions with financial outputs
• Cash flow forecast identifies timing gaps between expenditure and receipts
• Break-even analysis tests volume, price, margin, and fixed-cost assumptions
• Scenario analysis compares base, upside, downside, and stress cases
• Funding requirement calculates cash needed to reach the next milestone

Participants can identify venture risks and plan appropriate controls.

• Risk register records likelihood, impact, owner, response, and trigger
• Regulatory scan identifies licences, approvals, standards, and reporting duties
• Data protection assessment covers collection, consent, retention, and access
• Intellectual property audit distinguishes patents, trademarks, copyright, and trade secrets
• Freedom-to-operate questions identify potential rights conflicts and specialist advice
• Risk appetite clarifies acceptable exposure before launch and scale decisions

Participants can build a focused plan for market entry and early customer acquisition.

• Go-to-market plan specifies segment, offer, channel, price, and timeline
• Customer acquisition funnel defines awareness, conversion, activation, and retention
• Sales process maps qualification, demonstration, proposal, negotiation, and close
• Pilot design sets customer commitments, success measures, and exit conditions
• Partnership strategy identifies route-to-market roles, incentives, and governance
• Launch metrics establish weekly targets, review cadence, and corrective actions

Participants can assess whether the venture can reliably deliver its promise.

• Operating readiness checklist covers people, process, technology, suppliers, and controls
• Capacity planning estimates demand, utilisation, bottlenecks, and contingency requirements
• RACI matrix assigns accountability for launch-critical activities and decisions
• Service-level measures define response time, quality, availability, and recovery
• Supplier due diligence reviews capability, resilience, cost, and contractual exposure
• Launch readiness review confirms unresolved dependencies and decision owners

Participants can prepare a funding request and governance model for the venture.

• Funding sources compare internal budgets, grants, debt, equity, and partnerships
• Investment memo structures problem, evidence, economics, risks, and recommendation
• Milestone funding links capital release to measurable validation outcomes
• Sponsor mapping identifies decision-makers, champions, blockers, and affected functions
• Governance cadence schedules evidence reviews, investment decisions, and escalation
• Board questions anticipated through claims, evidence, trade-offs, and contingencies

Participants can communicate a venture case clearly to different decision audiences.

• Pitch narrative moves from customer problem to evidence-backed investment request
• Executive summaries present decision, rationale, economics, risks, and next steps
• Storyboarding sequences slides around audience questions and decision criteria
• Data visualisation selects charts that make assumptions and evidence visible
• Objection handling addresses feasibility, demand, risk, and opportunity cost
• Stakeholder communication plans tailor messages, messengers, timing, and channels

Participants can build, review and present a complete venture development dossier for a defined opportunity.

• Venture dossier integrates opportunity, evidence, model, economics, risks, and launch
• Customer evidence reviewed against problem severity and segment selection
• Business model stress-tested through assumptions, scenarios, and dependency analysis
• Financial case reconciles funding request with milestones and cash requirements
• Governance panel criteria applied to continuation, pivot, pause, or stop
• Final presentation defends recommendations, trade-offs, and immediate next actions