Strategy For Startups Playbook

Strategy for Startups

Review our 2018 HBR McKinsey Award finalist article, “Strategy for Startups,” for an introduction to the Entrepreneurial Strategy framework.

“At least four domains of decision making are crucial for every venture”:

  • Customer

  • Technology

  • Organization

  • Competition

“Although any company will face additional choices that are particular to its context, a start-up that has not wrestled with at least these four decisions is unlikely to create and capture value on a sustainable basis.”

Entrepreneurial Strategy Compass

Walk through our Entrepreneurial Strategy  Compass, which outlines the coherent set of choices underlying each of the four common startup strategies.

Strategic opportunities for startups can be categorized along two dimensions:

  • attitude toward incumbents (collaborate or compete)

  • attitude toward the innovation (control or execution)

This produces four distinct entrepreneurial strategies that will guide a venture’s choices.

Workbook: Entrepreneurial Strategy Compass

test 2, Choose 1

Put Entrepreneurial Strategy to work for your startup idea.

Starting with your idea, use this workbook to develop alternative strategies for bringing forward that idea.

Clearly see which choices and strategies should be discarded.

Then Test Two and Choose One among the remaining limited set of options to assist you in choosing the path forward for your venture.

Workbook: Test 2, Choose 1, Explainer Video