A Guide to Discover Our Own Business Ideas

Have you ever imagined being able to set a business configuration just like you set a car configuration? That's what "Start-up!" does. It's an on line application that guides you to create business models starting from an entrepreneurial project, whether it is a new product, a service or a start-up. It helps you to bridge the gap between the original idea and its actual realization. Start-up! is a learning solution created in 2012 by SDA Bocconi School of Management Learning Lab (Director Leonardo Caporarello and Simona Tripoli) and faculty members (Francesco Saviozzi and Federico Visconti). So far it's been used at the Master in Strategy and Entrepreneurship (MISA) and at the Management Development Program (next use: at MISA on 2 July). It could compete with similar products on the market, its creators say.

Start-up! is based on the popular paper template Business Model Canvas, a model you fill with information about your business' value proposition, cost structure, etc. Forget about paper and markers and think about the Nokia Lumia screen instead. Now, replace the telephone, email, browser and camera icons with ten blocks about key partners, customer relationship, revenues and so on. Now you have an idea of how "Start-up!" looks like. Simplicity is the key. If you click on the "Market" icon, for instance, you're asked to refine your business target, identify its needs, value your competitors' offering. And you'd better have clear ideas because you have to make accurate qualitative and quantitative evaluations.

"Start-up! forces you to answer questions you wouldn't otherwise ask yourself: you have to take a stand", Francesco Saviozzi says. "It's a guide to discover your own idea". A common mistake when writing a business plan is to think that having a good idea is enough. Of course it's not. You have to refine it and rationalize it. "One thing is to say: I'm going to the market and offer my product to a young target. Another thing is having a tool that compels you to understand every single detail concerning your target". Start-up! has more fine qualities: coherence, immediacy, mobile compliance. It's sophisticated, but it looks like it's not. Once you've explored each block and filled in every field, you'll get a final presentation that comes with automatically generated charts that you could submit right away to investors.

"Start-up! is an empty box that contains an intuitive method", Simona Tripoli says. "It's self-contained. There's no sequence you have to comply, you can start with any field you like". And you can always perfect hypothesis and register market changes, as it happens when companies are about to launch new products or services. "Users end up realizing an important concept: all areas are connected so that a small change has a great impact on the whole business model. Using "Start-up!" they can check it in real time".