Blog

Frank Mattes shares a video and article on a recent interview from the Innovation Room podcast where he talks about the genesis, purpose and vision of his company Lean Scaleup.

How did you arrive at the Lean Scaleup?

Viima: Could you share with us the story behind the story of the Lean Scaleup?

Frank: In essence, I’ve been working in a space that people nowadays like to call innovation for over 20 years. It all started when the term didn’t even exist. Back then, many companies called it ‘New Product Development.’

Around 10 years ago I got interested in the out-of-the-box space. Open Innovation was the hot topic of the day. I became interested in helping companies with finding solutions to technical problems.

Finally, around five years ago, a few of my clients, which are large global companies like bp, Bosch, or Telefonica, brought up a new problem. Their issue was not in the early stages, not in lacking ideas. They had more ideas than they could ever implement. But the problem was the neglible business impact that came out from their innovation activities. And they asked if there is any way I could help them with this.

That made me curious. I looked around and I found… nothing. Academia said that you have to split operations and innovation (ambidexterity). But it didn’t say how you bring things together at the end of the journey. Large consulting companies didn’t have a viewpoint on the topic either at that time.

So, I gathered 20+ companies, the London Business School, UC Berkeley and said that we need to stick our heads together – the wisdom of the crowd – to understand why is it so hard for companies to build new businesses inside of the existing business and how the solution could look like.

That’s where the whole journey started. One result was the framework that has been branded Lean Scaleup. But let me make this clear – that’s not Frank, it’s Frank moderating a process with brilliant minds from leading companies and leading business schools.

 

Key points include:

• Using effective terminology
• Typical pain points
• Unblocking a company that is stuck in its past success

Read the full article, Corporate new-business building in a nutshell, on LeanScaleUp.com.