Innovation Insights
Guides, comparisons and practitioner notes on business model innovation, value propositions, testing, portfolio management and innovation readiness. Written from what actually happened in the room, in 100+ sessions at 50+ companies, not from the textbook version.
New and updated
The four actions framework: redesigning your business model, not just your product
The four actions framework asks what to eliminate, reduce, raise, and create. Most teams stop at the product. Here's how to run it across your whole business model, so a change on the value side doesn't blow up your cost side six months later.
Guide · Updated 26 August 2026 · 11 min read
Reddit business model canvas: how the platform actually makes money
Case study · 10 min read
Business Model Canvas: 9 blocks, 100+ sessions, what teams get wrong
Pillar guide · 24 min read
7 Business Model Canvas examples (B2B + industrial, not Uber)
Article · 14 min readBusiness model innovation
How to design and renew business models with the nine blocks of the Business Model Canvas. What separates sessions that end in real decisions from the ones that produce expensive wallpaper.
The four actions framework: redesigning your business model, not just your product
The four actions framework asks what to eliminate, reduce, raise, and create. Most teams stop at the product. Here's how to run it across your whole business model, so a change on the value side doesn't blow up your cost side six months later.
Read the guide →Reddit business model canvas: how the platform actually makes money
Reddit gives its product away for free, does not create any of its own content, and still made 1.3 billion dollars in 2024. I map the whole business model on the Business Model Canvas and show you the one structural tension every platform founder should understand.
Read the guide →Business Model Canvas: 9 blocks, 100+ sessions, what teams get wrong
The Business Model Canvas is one of the world's most used strategy tools, and one of the most misused. After 100+ sessions with numerous companies, I've seen real breakthroughs and expensive wallpaper. This guide explains what the nine blocks mean in practice, the mistakes that derail most sessions, and when you should skip the BMC entirely.
Read the guide →Value propositions
Getting sharp on customer jobs, pains and gains with the Value Proposition Canvas, before you build or promise anything. Plus the customer conversations most teams skip, why they skip them, and what that costs when the proposition meets a real buyer.
Customer jobs, pains and gains: identify them from real interviews
The customer profile is where the Value Proposition Canvas succeeds or fails. Most teams rush through it. They list obvious pains, guess at jobs, and skip gains entirely. After 100+ sessions, I can tell within five minutes whether a team has talked to real customers or filled in the canvas from their conference room.
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Value Proposition Canvas examples: 7 companies analyzed
Most Value Proposition Canvas examples online are oversimplified or fictional. These seven are not. I analyzed well-known companies and industrial B2B cases with completed canvases, practitioner commentary, and honest notes on what is missing.
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Value Proposition Canvas for B2B: how to handle the user, buyer, and decision-maker problem
The Value Proposition Canvas assumes one customer profile. B2B buying committees have 6-10 stakeholders with conflicting jobs, pains, and gains. Here is how to build canvases that match the way B2B decisions actually get made.
Read the guide →Testing and validation
Turning assumptions into experiments before the big investment decisions. Including experiments that survive long sales cycles and physical products, where a quick landing page test proves nothing.
Testing Business Ideas vs Lean Startup: 4 differences that matter
Teams ask me which framework is best: Testing Business Ideas, Lean Startup, customer development, or design thinking. After 100+ sessions, my answer is always the same. They overlap more than they differ. The real question is which elements fit your specific situation.
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Innovation accounting: how to measure what your board actually needs to see
Your board wants ROI numbers for ideas that do not have revenue yet. Innovation accounting gives you the four metrics that actually measure progress in early-stage innovation. How to defend your innovation budget with evidence, not promises.
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Pivot or persevere: how to make the decision in corporate innovation
Most pivot-or-persevere advice targets startup founders making solo decisions. Corporate innovation is different. Sunk costs, political sponsors, and team members whose jobs depend on continuation change the equation. Here is how to build the decision into the process from day one.
Read the guide →Innovation portfolio
Managing innovation as a portfolio: deciding what to feed, what to pause and what to stop. And the governance that makes those decisions stick after the meeting ends.
Business portfolio map: a practitioner's honest assessment
The Business Portfolio Map gives leadership teams a visual snapshot of their innovation portfolio. But after using it in 50+ sessions with industrial companies, I know where it helps and where it needs adaptation. Here is an honest assessment.
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Innovation portfolio governance: how to run review meetings that actually decide
Your innovation portfolio strategy might be brilliant. But if your review meetings produce status updates instead of kill, pivot, or invest decisions, nothing changes. After 100+ portfolio governance sessions, here is what separates functional governance from update theater.
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Innovation portfolio management for B2B: what generic guides get wrong
Most innovation portfolio advice is built for consumer markets. B2B companies face longer sales cycles, procurement committees, and channel partner dynamics that change how you balance explore and exploit. Here is what to do differently.
Read the guide →Innovation readiness
Whether your organization can actually run the innovation it says it wants: structure, incentives, governance. How to assess that honestly before you start another program.
What is an ambidextrous organization? (And how to build one)
Most established companies try to run explore and exploit with the same governance, the same metrics, and the same culture. That is why explore keeps dying. After working with 50+ industrial companies, here is what an ambidextrous organization actually requires — and which of the three models is realistic for manufacturing B2B.
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Innovation culture assessment: how to measure what your organization actually does
Innovation culture is the hardest thing to assess because what organizations say about their culture rarely matches what they do. This framework traces backwards from outcomes to behaviors to root causes — and explains why self-assessment by leadership alone consistently produces misleading results.
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Innovation culture blockers: why corporate innovation programs fail
Most corporate innovation programs fail not because of bad ideas, but because of nine specific organizational blockers. After 25 years working with industrial and B2B companies, I keep seeing the same patterns across three categories: leadership support, organizational design, and innovation practice.
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