Applying acceleration methodology in acceleration industry

1. Experience report:
Applying acceleration methodology
to the ICT industry
Tiina.Apilo@vtt.fi
Marko.Komssi@f-secure.com

2. Contents:
• This report presents lessons learned from applying acceleration methodology
in new product, service and business incubation and acceleration.
• The findings are based on 13 interviews and in-depth analysis.
• The lessons learned were collected after the iterative development and
usage of the methodology in the real-life projects.
• The real-life findings are categorized and presented to complement the
validated acceleration methodology.
• The practical and contextual findings will equip software-intensive companies
to apply the principles in various business domains.

3. Acceleration
Applicable and needed in several contexts
- ”whether it is an existing or new business, which is spun off, is carried
out in a similar process, in principle”
- “it could be new products but it could also be old products that how do
we accelerate those also.”
- ”these same practices and metrics can be used to accelerate both the
existing and new businesses”
- “an important thing here I think is that, there can be acceleration for
anybody”
- “I've actually also used the type of approach here when we've talked
about any types of things. Could be about software development, could be
about any ideas.”
Brave attitude
- “every product is a startup after it really gets rolling out”
- “the fastest road to a huge success is to thoroughly understand that the
existing successful business is not yet truly scaled”
The definition and Positioning
- “I like that top sentence there, faster to the right market, so it's also
about identifying where to go, which is.. companies often talk about going
global but then, what does that mean?”
- ”Looks good”
- ”I think I can live with it ”
- ”It’s really good”
Comments
Looks
good

4. Acceleration journey
Helping companies to have a right focus
- ”The message is that it is important for you as a company to recognize at which stage
you are.”
- ”..these were all very important questions which I think on the high level are exactly
the things that, if you can't answer one of them, then you need to stop and go back.”
- ”It's in the early stage of finding new insights. And it's in the late stage here of, see
how your solutions perform.”
- “Data is less important in those stages [Idea& Problem-solution fit] because this is
more about the people. It's much more about the people than the data. Finding, having
good teams.. where here [Product-Market fit] it is really about data yeah.“
- “The biggest problem with many of the startups is that they actually don't know
exactly what to do. They have limited time and you have to do the right things at the
right time.”
- ”In the new type of free-to-play world, the business model can be added later. But in
this case, I think, the business modelling is a part of product/market fit”
- “phases they give you some kind of a reference frame about what is important to do
in your phase. And we see that many companies actually struggle with orienting them.”
Beyond the phases
- “I also like the fact that it's a circle, because it continues on”
- “I would highlight that this resources to move forward is especially important”
- ”This covers well the phases. Sometimes there are also in between some modules.
Sometimes you need also to make, tests or before going to the scaling for example
here problem solution. Or also after the idea before the solution we need sometimes
to make tests to look for a solution to test it and make maybe an iteration.”
- ”Ecosystem thinking in very early phase”
- ”I think that on initial business model, a draft of the business model, should exist
from the idea stage.”
- ”I think the acceleration journey is more or less a floating process that does not
include any gate criteria”
- ”It’s a thin red line in criteria to move the next phase. The business focus can also
come backwards and then go forward again.”
- ”The term ”sustainable business” describes more of a car rather than how enter and
achieve a rapid growth”
Examples & Experiences
phases they give you
some kind of a
reference frame about
what is important to
do in your phase

5. Acceleration journey
Discovering the customer
- ”In the idea phase, you have to have a thought of a customer”
- ”we have to talk to the players in the market to see what they want to do. Our role might just be
to bring them together and have one concept and we might not want to be the leading person in
doing this but by creating this communication we can essentially tap into it and deliver to them.”
- ”it’s indeed a valid question to have at this stage what are their problems what are their needs
how can you attract them to your business.”
- ”what is the problem and need, if you don't identify that then, you can't really go on. “
Discovering the problem
- ”Without problems, there aren’t solutions – therefore, this customer discover defination is
good”
- ”this stage is over when you know that you have a problem that is worth solving”
- ”we still tend to think too much like I have this idea that I want to do rather than is it what
people really need”
- “That's something that you can do in the idea stage, you really, pinpoint what is specifically that
the customer sees as a problem, that needs to be solved.”
Is the problem worth solving?
- “we will use the technique of customer interviewing to make sure that what we are doing is
actually, what people need.”
- “the creation of these different landing pages we can look at what works what doesn't work
what is it that people feel like perceive like the problem.”
- “You can have it validated by a small prototype”
- “As tools that we used in this idea stage we had, interviews. Let’s say more open discussions
than interviews… We also have lots of, focus groups and brainstorming internally to find the best
way of developing the platform in time and make sure that it will cover all the, requirements
gathered”
Committed people
- ”In the idea phase, you only need a short description of the idea and a commited person who
believes that it is a good idea and, then, put it forward”
- ”In this phase, it’s not that tough you yet think resources. But, funding negotiations needs to get
started based on the demo.”
- “you should have faith that if you have a good team or good employees and you give them
freedom to generate idea there will be something that comes from it.”
- “At the idea stage we really didn’t test it. We really didn’t have so much testing done because
we didn’t have something that we can show.. In software development usually if you don’t have
something to show, it’s not really easy to understand what you’re going to..”
Examples & Experiences
You have to
have a thought
of the customer

6. Acceleration journey
Focus on a Happy and loyal customer
- ”What is the solution for, it could be happy customer or maybe it's just a satisfied customer, because it
might be a service and I mean for some things like, even translations, it doesn't make the customer happy
but they need it to be able to do their certain things so they are satisfied because they're able to get
something.”
- ”it was important to use the tool to make the right decisions. So if you feel like should we add or delete
this part is this going fast enough or whatever that we did this together with either the customer or with
some partner developing with us rather than making all the decisions ourselves. And that’s faster.“
- ”it's okay to ask customers in that stage what they think of the solution. But you don't ask them yet if
they would buy it. You don't ask them what would be the pricing for that. You don't ask them what would
be the business model. Those are the things that you're taking care of in the product-market fit phase.”
”this means that the concept has been experimented with a customer. Our view on this phase is that the
concept has been evaluated to see if the it has the value we want and the real value for the customer or
not.”
“it's sometimes difficult to know how do you test that you have a happy customer without already having
made your product.. if you can test without going too far in the development process already then it's
really good to have that.”
Towards a paying customer
- “if you're working on the solution that you're doing that because you're asking input about the
performance of your product and the quality of it and if it works and if you can make it and so it's all
product-solution-related questions. Then when you've got it and you say okay, this is my product design. I
figured it out and it works and we can make it, then you go into validation. Then you say, we're not longer
looking at the concept itself. Now we're going to think about making this attractive so that people buy it”
- ”there's a difference between a happy customer and a paying customer. It's very different. It's not
difficult to have a happy customer, but is he prepared to pay. So the exit criteria here is paying
customer.”
- “If you have a customer that pays once for your service and then leaves, and you have only a potential
of a thousand customers at your market, then you will never have product-market fit. You will have no
market. You can have a perfect solution but not a market. “
- ”if you have an idea that people really like but they don't want to pay for it, you shouldn't spend too
much time on it as a company. It could be interesting just to do it but not if you want to make money of
it.”
- “it's possible that there is a market fit but that it's a free product, and that there is another way of
making money in advertising or in collecting data.”
”This applies to our demo phase. We measure the value of concept and parhaps consider the business
model to consider the offering.
Examples & Experiences
if you have an idea
that people really like
but they don't want to
pay for it, you
shouldn't spend too
much time on it as a
company

7. Acceleration journey
To find a business model that works
- ”really looking at the market fit. We had an initial idea about it but it wasn’t the right one
and that’s where we accelerated formulating that right market fit.”
- “Here you have to be very innovative on the level of can we find the business model that
works”
- “here the business model has to really to be proven and then you go to the next phase and
then you really put all the effort in scaling it up. But basically the business model does not
change anymore”
- “Imagine that you have found the business model and you see that it works, and you have a
thousand customers, and for instance your software architecture is not ready to have one
million customers, and you do your action and it works with your one million, and your
software cannot handle it, you completely fail because you only have one chance to
succeed.”
- “So the readiness for scaling, is the exit criteria here. Then you can start to work on making
the thing scalable.”
- “Typically if you're still modifying your business model you're still in this phase. Scaling is
then dangerous because if you make a mistake you can only scale once. You have to be very
sure that it works and then you go into the scaling phase.”
- ”can you start living with it. You don’t necessarily need to have a perfect business model. It
can be even unprofitable at the moment. But we need to have a clear forecast that if we put
more money and resources, it will soon turn to profitable. This is needed before we start
scaling.”
- ”the initial business model is very good in this type of state of transition as it shall be here.
Without the business model it doesn’t make sense to start heavily investing in
advertisement.”
- ”the initial business model is a good description in this phase to illustrate the vision of how
the business will be done rather than already doing it.”
- ”it's not only how will we get to the market but in which form will we go to the market”
- “a part of the product-market fit as well to know, how you will make money with it and
how it will work.”
- in this phase, we already know what should be done better. We need resources and money
to move forward”
- ”a key issue is networks and how credible is a CEO, who has had a big company. And, that
we have a partner company who already has those existing customers.”
- ”globalization approach here should be maybe mentioned, in the market fit.”
Examples & Experiences
you have to be very
innovative on the
level of can we find
the business model
that works

8. Acceleration journey
Incredients for scaling
- ”we can’t scale alone. The ecosystem partners have the utmost role in scaling.”
- ”we do it with the customers, we ask them, we see their feedback because, the moment,
we go a lot to the customers, or we talk with them via Skype”
- ”you have to invest the time that you speak the same language with the customer.. To tell
them look this is functioning like that and that and that to make a demonstration.”
- ”we have two components of the scaling part. One is to get your customers and to get a lot
of them.. that's another part of scaling too to make sure that these processes work well..”
- ”every new customer is very needed and we’re ready to pay to get them, typically by
marketing. Growth hacking is also a method to get them. For instance, there are such
businesses that involve high hosting costs to produce the actual service. The cost may
become too high if we scale too fast that will lead to a bankcrupty of the company.”
- “if you're a smaller company it's the first thing, and you have to make this growth. It will be
a really difficult thing if you start scaling you just growing you go from 5 to 20 people. Then
you'll have also the issue of how will we organize this internally and that will be a big
challenge as well”
Thinking beyond scaling
- ”Sustainable business is a rocket that funds several new businesses”
- ”The arrow describes the investor’s money, the investment. The successful scaling results
in money and resources. You have money to invest in the next idea. In the startup world, at
least, in USA, the investors get money somewhere, not in the early scaling phase of this
company. Later, they use it to accelerate several new businesses.
- If you don’t start a completely new business, the arrow can also descripe network and
brand that can be leveraged in new businesses.
- In the app market, there is a tendency to use the existing app to market several new ones.
- Many companies become the victims of successful scaling. They have one great success
story but forget to use it as a resource for the next idea.
- The arrow could also be, continuous development of that particular business.”
- “if we're talking about larger companies that the product is not always ready at the first
time... it can also be further development of the same product as well.“
- ...it has also enabled a new idea that is in the concept phase. It’s a kind of result of scaling,
as it has offered customer interface.
Examples & Experiences
The ecosystem
partners have the
utmost role in
scaling

9. 8 to-do’s for new business acceleration
1. Step outside of the building to recognize the real problems your potential customers are
facing: e.g. apply user and customer experience thinking.
2. Make the whole acceleration journey with and for your users and customers.
3. Act fast but remember to invest time on eliciting material from the problem space,
competitors and indirect competitors. There needs to be a well-argued problem statement.
4. Never stop with idea generation and small experimentations also with your business
model. Continue it at every phase of your business.
5. Use the power of social media: e.g. in identifying problems, finding solutions, creating
awareness and new markets.
6. Test and find social media channels suitable for you: utilise multiple supporting accounts
and utilise platforms’ own analytics.
7. To guide your journey to scalable business, progressively select and use KPIs to track
customer experience, business performance and learning.
8. Use acceleration tools & mindset and startup-like structures regardless of your
company’s age and size.
Continuous ideation & experimentation
- ”ideation happens all around. It happens all the time”
- “In all of the phases you can have ideation you can have
discussion you can have iteration interaction all that kind of
stuff. The main difference is, you're focusing either on the
problem you're focusing on the solution or you're focusing on
the market fit”
- ”you can experiment here and there, but the nature of the
experiments is different. For instance here, you can do
scaling experiments you can try out, for instance how can I
scale to Twitter, how can I scale using this. So you can do a lot
of experimentation here but the nature is, on the scaling
element.
- “You experiment everywhere.”
- “ideation is not a separate activity, it must be a part of all
activities”
Comments
ideation is not a
separate
activity, it must
be a part of all
activities

10. Business model development during the acceleration process
The Acceleration matrix – validatating ”validated”
- ”Yes, this visualization of acceleration process progress is pretty nice, I
think.”
- ”Yes, this is rather good”
- ”I can understand this and it is very good, I think”
- ”at idea stage, I think, all this needs, problem, solution, value proposition,
sustainable business are in place”
- ”it’s a good tool. The matrix is a good tool to show what is necessary for
each stage”
- ”Actually, this define, for instance, how to create customer demand and
what does it mean that this includes the creation of sustainable business. In
other words, in order to achieve sustaiable busienss, you have to have a
business model that is already in use. It is good, but it is unambiguosly defined
here. Additionally, this describes how to create sustainable business and to
test and validate it. Well, it seems to mean that business model is created but
we’re not necessarily sure.”
- ”Whatabout this rocket thingie? Does it mean ”validated” when when you
have achieved a huge growth? Indeed, the last phase of scaling is huge growth.
In other words, I may have a car that follows to road but it’s not a growing
rocket. Does the car mean validated business? Yet, the rocket goes faster and
faster.”
Comments
The matrix is a
good tool to show
what is necessary
for each stage

11. Methods
- ”we do a lot of customer interviews and things like
that”
- “it's really important to do this type of interviews and
or techniques or surveys early on to make sure that
you're on the right path”
- ”we read a lot.. to keep up with everything that's been
said on.. and keep on reading about the best practices”
- ”AARRR model (Startup metrics for pirates) is really
good. We have drawn it to the whiteboard so many
times with so many different paople and it has always
been the tool that help to wake up people
Experiences of other tools
we do a lot of
customer interviews
and things like that

12. Methods
• ”we've done different business model experiments as well.. mainly piloting as well with the customers and using that feedback”
• ”it tells the content of business model well and how things go. And, you have an explication of the actual idea elsewhere.”
• ”In the early phase, the canvas includes propably the most important things. Then you use Excel to show how the things develop”
• ”The canvas is rather static and doesn’t show, for instance, the progress and diversity of markets and partners over time. From the
investors’ point of view, we’d need a timeline here.”
• ”When a team is working together, it’s good that you have the shared view in a nutshell.”
• ”If we would have done that in the beginning of the project, we would have had the machine much faster, and we would have had a
much better business model at the end of the project.“
• “we believe, by just using, a standard stage gate approach, that stage gate, so that we are slow. If we include the wide lens into the
stage gate, we feel we can accelerate the stage gate.“
• “the strength of the method is also in the fact that you get people from different disciplines, at one
table, talking the same language.”
• “One flaw I see in the model, is that, it does not take into account what your competitor is doing. So, if they have a completely new idea,
it’s not something you put on your map. So that’s a blind spot.”
• ”very strong methodology to move from insights what-if hypotheses”
• “.. interviews, analyse the performance elements and then create a kind of a value curve and then you have a problem definition. You
have identified the pain in the market and the need, and you have identified what kind of solution you need to address it.”
• MOU:” focus always on the customer to do any solution”
• “well like online marketing of course the Google Analytics to make us be visible there then the LinkedIn promotion and Facebook all the
social nets”
• ”we try to do is create awareness.. it's already looking forward to the scaling part actually”
• “We are creating awareness about it using our social media to share knowledge or links or things like that.. to make sure that people
know that we're doing”
• “That's the ease of the social media that you can easily approach large volumes and let them know
what you're doing.”
Business model
canvas
Wide lenses
Design thinking
Social media
http://www.accelerateplatform.eu/
content/design-thinking
http://www.accelerateplatform.eu/
content/social-media
http://www.accelerateplatform.eu/
content/business-model-canvas
Experiences

13. Growthhacking
Methods
• ”Using growth hacking too early is a bad idea from the philoshophical point of view. It should be used when it has
the best lever that is in the scaling phase”
• ”It’s often said that growth hacking is a method for small companies. In fact, growth hacking is best suited for growing
companies that are just becoming large ones.”
• ”Exclusive thinking between growth hacking and tradition marketing and, consequently, only using one or another is a big
mistake. Of course, there are thoughts in marketing side that growth hacking comes and eliminates all the traditional
work. However, these things should be used alongside.
• “we definitely have been using this digital content marketing quite a lot.”
• “We've been doing different types of, what we call, onboarding campaigns which for example focused for certain.. larger
customers to try to get them to try it out came on to the board“
• “for us, digital content marketing, and marketing the actual marketing of content is the essence.
• “using of plug-ins and tools Google Analytics, Google Search, Console for monitoring visitors for collecting information for
optimisation. We are using also some tools. We are try to focus on the main products on the service on the domain to
bring more information so that can help to the visitors to take decision.. it doesn't sense to invest too
much in advertising. First you have to be very clear, what you have to do.
Also the paid advertising we used but there our experience was not so good with paid advertising. We can bring some
visitors to website but without a specific action you cannot grow your conversion rate.”
Digital content
marketing
Runtime
intelligence and
data analytics
http://www.accelerateplatform.eu/
content/growthhacking
http://www.accelerateplatform.eu/
content/digital-content-marketing
http://www.accelerateplatform.eu/
content/runtime-intelligence-and-
data-analytics
Experiences

14. KPI’s
• ”What I think has been a challenge is then of course the systematic having
someone to systematically look at those things because of course once this thing
goes live everyone kind of.. it kind of was extra from their normal job.
• But it's just that we need to systematically measure that a little bit more“
• ”The fundamental business metrics, cost/savings, revenue, typically drives most of
the development and only after that we also start considering the market size and
share.
• ”In my experience, gross sales rate and revenue growth are important earlier and
market share (and similar) maybe a bit later.”
• ”it's difficult to have KPIs that are measurable because you could say the product
has to be better. That's not really tangible.”
• “a better customer satisfaction is also one of the things that's important”
• “things like market size and growth, or potential market share would be important.
• ”all the phases have their own KPIs to follow and they change in each phase. There
shall be KPIs also for the idea stage”
• ”a KPI is good that it forces to discuess the difficult topics early enough.”
• “about the users in the portal how active they are and then of course the number
of orders coming through there. And for those customers then how did we see an
increase of net sales coming from the, since they took the portal onto use and
beforehand.”
• ”We can’t measure the success rate of proposals at all.”
• ”Acquisition alone is rather meaningless. In addition, we measure the next phases
of sales funnel that really leads to a sales deal. Then, we also measure active users
to follow how many users are actually using the service and how they are using the
service in the important business matters”
Examples & Experiences
all the phases have
their own KPIs to
follow and they
change in each
phase

15. More information:
www.accelerateproject.eu
www.twitter.com/accelerateproj
www.slideshare.net/accelerateproject
www.accelerateplatform.eu