Testing business ideas: Aligning strategy with IP protection

It's such an interesting and exciting time to be working with IP because we have so many new players in the system that are helping entrepreneurs understand IP.

And so I'm really thrilled that you're here.

Now you've worked with David.

So what would you say were the initial challenges that you faced where you were validating business idea? And how did you feel that this methodology addressed the challenges that entrepreneurs are seeing?

Unfortunately, I can't take the credit for architecting our program to really focus on that connection or that intersection between business strategy and intellectual property strategy.

But when I joined the team last year, we had already made the decision to use the Business Model Canvas as a tool to help us and help our applicants for our program really understand how IP and business fit together.

So I had the opportunity several years ago to help develop and deliver some educational programming here in Calgary focused on the Business Model Canvas.

So I already knew of David, although we had never met.

But when I joined the team, one of the immediate things that we recognized was that there was education needed both for entrepreneurs and for the advisors, coaches, mentors that we have in the province.

Because a lot of times, and I think this is part of what we're trying to change with our program.

entrepreneurs feel like intellectual property is its own disconnected thing that is not necessarily related to business strategy.

And that is one of the biggest challenges that I think we've seen and that we were trying to address when we first connected with David and brought him in to help run some workshops for advisors, coaches, and mentors to really help them use the business model canvas, this global industry standard tool that has been around for many years.

How can advisors, coaches and mentors use the business model canvas to get entrepreneurs thinking about how intellectual property relates to their business? And as David highlighted, So many entrepreneurs have this mentality of, you know, if we build it, they will come.

If we're looking at it through an IP lens, it's kind of if I protect it, they will come.

And so, you know, we're happy to have David come in and work with our network of advisors, coaches and mentors in Alberta to help them ask the right questions and to help them be able to work with the entrepreneurs to see that connection between business and intellectual property and and then be able to actually go out and test it in a way that doesn't prevent them from moving their business forward.

Let's talk about this because if we build it, they will come.

If we protect it, they will come.

We know it doesn't work like that.

So let's talk about these light bulb moments.

Can you share a specific moment where somebody has been testing a business idea and they just had this insight, this pivotal insight in the company's direction where they realized that, oh, do you have anything like that to share?

We have a couple examples that I can share.

And I mean, I've got some personal examples as well.

I think just seeing some of the light bulbs, proverbial light bulbs go off above the heads of participants in the workshops with David has been very telling.

And I think very indicative of the fact that a lot of even advisors, coaches and mentors who have been serial entrepreneurs who have a lot of experience working in startups have don't always think about that connection to the the evidence that is needed right and it's not one size fits all stop here it's like well some companies can go further with testing than others but in the end everyone can test and evidence is key testing is the way you can test strong ip backed companies and and that's the message that we are repeating over and over again in our workshops.

And as we kind of point entrepreneurs to the business model canvas and testing, that's really the mantra that we've developed.