Book Summary: The Innovator's Method

Investment experts point out that over 90% of startups fail in the contemporary business environment. This book provides comprehensive answers on why most starts ups fail and how to avert such failures. It presents aspiring and existing entrepreneurs with new tools and perspectives for authenticating big investment ideas characterized by high levels of uncertainties.

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Book Summary: The Innovator's Method
Investment experts point out that over 90% of startups fail in the contemporary business
environment. This figure illustrates that there is a significant waste of resources, as well as
entrepreneurship minds. People are coming up with brilliant business ideas. Sadly, a substantial
percentage of these ideologies die prematurely. This book provides comprehensive answers on
why most starts ups fail and how to avert such failures. According to the authors, most
businesses fail due to poor prediction of how uncertainties will affect or shape a given
investment in the future. Consequently, this book presents aspiring and existing entrepreneurs
with new tools and perspectives for authenticating big investment ideas characterized by high
levels of uncertainties.
The new perspective presented in the book is what the authors term as innovator’s
method. As Furr and Dyer (2014) point out in the book, the fear of uncertainty is the leading
cause for most entrepreneurs not pursuing their investment dreams. These potential investors
perceive their investment ideas as being too risky. Therefore, they end up abandoning these ideas
to avert resource waste. However, the innovator’s method presented in this a book provides
entrepreneurs with a secure way of managing innovations by lowering uncertainties and risks
through cheap and rapid experimentations.
Importantly, the innovator‘s method entails four crucial steps; savor surprises,
discovering the job to be done, launching a prototype, and creating a business model. The goal of
these four steps is to ensure that entrepreneurs and investors do not launch businesses that fail to
address the needs of customers. Moreover, following these steps enables investors to establish
whether the investment ideas are worth pursuing and to determine the right business model for
the new venture. Furthermore, the book advocates that modern entrepreneurs need to possess

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innovator’s DNA. Possessing innovator DNA, in this case, implies that entrepreneurs must
possess the essential skills and abilities to successfully implement the innovator’s method in their
respective business settings. The innovator’s DNA behaviors highlighted by the authors are
questioning, observing, networking, and experimenting. Consequently, the fundamental goal of
the innovator’s approach is to minimize resource waste by enabling entrepreneurs to launch
ventures that suit the needs of the market.
Moreover, the book also discusses the concept of leadership in this era of uncertainty.
Furr and Dyer (2014) note that traditional management training is inefficient in equipping
contemporary managers with skills and knowledge to survive in the modern business
environment. The current business environment is dominated by high uncertainties making
entrepreneurial management essential. Unlike traditional management approaches,
entrepreneurial management requires individuals with broad abilities and capabilities of seeing
business problems and solutions from diverse angles. Therefore, this book insists that the players
in the business sector need to change how they do things as the industry evolves.
Conclusively, this book presents unique tools for suppressing uncertainties and risks in
new investment ventures. The innovator’s framework discussed by the authors enlightens
entrepreneurs and investors on how to pursue their investment ideologies without incurring
significant resource loss. Moreover, the book discusses leadership strategies that are effective in
the contemporary business environment which is characterized by substantial levels of
uncertainties. Consequently, any existing or aspiring entrepreneur needs to learn about the set of
tools discussed in this book in detail to enhance their success.

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References
Furr, N., & Dyer, J. (2014). The Innovator's Method: Bringing the Lean Start-up into Your
Organization. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.