Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Testing Business Ideas: A Field Guide for Rapid Experimentation (Strategyzer)

Top positive review

Practical Testing of Business Ideas

Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2019

As expected Bland & Osterwalder did an excellent job explaining their Testing Framework, identify who could benefit from it and where each set of questions applies to previous Business Model Canvas framework. They divide testing ideas into three main categories: Desirability, Feasibility, and Viability. These are not arbitrary classifications and should be the concern of every entrepreneur, architect and business executive. What I haven't seen is coverage outside the core BMC elements. Those of you that have read Business Model Generation rather than the summaries many people give will note that the external forces that a business model operates within are significantly important and have influences on the core model. My assumption is the hypothesis behind the Testing Framework is to discover those interactions with those external factors. I'm not sure however, unless focused to do so the framework will not yield such situational awareness. Like SAFe Agile it may have to grow to be a more comprehensive Enterprise Class tool. From just this snapshot I'd would rate it an Amazon 5 Star. The gaps I see may be more scope decisions that Strategyzer made keeping the context on rapid testing around the internal factors of the business model. However, the topic of testing business ideas is well represented here in a practical manner.

19 people found this helpful

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Michel Biedermann

Great content but poor quality control

Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2020

The content is outstanding like all of Strategyzer's thought provoking books. I just love how they stimulate ideas in me on how to help my clients. The problem with this one is that quite a few pages are truncated like some of my pictures show (e.g., VI, 13, 21, 22, 23, 45, 46, etc.). I realize that this is a problem with Wiley Publishing and not Strategyzer. I contacted Wiley. They didn't seem all that interested beyond promising me an exchange or a refund. I don't want to risk it, so I'll get the Kindle version instead. Too bad for this blemish because the Strategyzer team is one of my favorite thought leadership in strategic transformation.

26 people found this helpful

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From the United States

Brian K. Seitz

Practical Testing of Business Ideas

Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2019

Verified Purchase

19 people found this helpful

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Tony R. Harper

Calling all Corporate Innovators, Startup Entrepreneurs, and Solopreneurs!!!

Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2020

Verified Purchase

Got an idea and unsure how to get a better understanding of its viability, feasibility, desirability? This book delivers on how best to approach your (and possibly your team or company's) learning journey!

The book is divided into 4 sections: Design, Test, Experiments, and Mindset. The first two sections are about setting yourself up for success before you get an experiment underway (e.g. team design, identifying your hypothesis). The Experiments section helps you pick the right experiment (out of 44) by asking questions around level of uncertainty and urgency along with some rules of thumb. The book closes with Mindset and shares with the reader many pitfalls that can be encountered (and how to avoid them) as well as the role of leadership along the journey.

Be sure to check out the Precoil website where the primary author, David Bland, has supplementary resources, videos, etc. along with workshop offerings to further develop your knowledge and skills. As of the time of this review, conducting workshops remotely is essentially a requirement and David has already proven to be highly skilled in promoting personal and group engagement in this delivery format.

Last note: the other books in the Strategyzer series (Business Model Generation, Value Proposition Design, and The Invincible Company) are a complementary wealth of guidance.

4 people found this helpful

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Michel Biedermann

Great content but poor quality control

Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2020

Verified Purchase

26 people found this helpful

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Juan Manuel Vera

Great book, as usual....

Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2019

Verified Purchase

I really enjoyed this book as all from Strategyzer collection.
the book is a necessary complement of the other two.
Id like te explanation and tips of each one of the experiments and techniques.
Certainly is not a deep book but is a reference book for get ideas and a motivation to go further

3 people found this helpful

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Jessi Tatko

This has all the tools - a true must have business startup survival guide!

Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2020

Verified Purchase

The reasoning Bland and Osterwalder give for testing the business idea’s are genius. The models are easy to follow and made it simple to create a visual business canvas that anyone can understand. This not only helped me organize my new startup but helped me realize where I could strengthen my other two companies. I spent 3 months staring at notes to start a multi-level complicated company. The day I received his book and watched a couple of YouTube video’s - was the day I organized everything. The only complication of reading this book was all the new ideas it gave me. I could go on but thank you for this guide.

2 people found this helpful

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John Bradberry

A Tool-Rich Resource -- keep it close by if you are launching an idea, a product, or a venture

Reviewed in the United States on April 9, 2020

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The notion of "experiments" gives rise to an interesting phenomenon in the world of innovation and entrepreneurship. Because our assumptions about the future are so ironclad and 'obvious,' most founders, innovators, and leaders think of experiments as a luxury, something to be done when we have more time. What they fail to grasp is that *every* initiative is an experiment, consciously or not.

The beauty of this work is that David and Alex provide a broad set of methods for *consciously* experimenting in order to dramatically reduce risk and elevate odds of success. This is one of those works that represents decades of accumulated knowledge, immediately applicable and valuable.

This is not only a beautifully rendered book, but a resource that will be dog-eared over time for anyone aspiring to build viable, profitable products and businesses.

One person found this helpful

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PTF

It’s about..testing business ideas

Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2022

Verified Purchase

It’s a nice book. It is very graphics oriented - basically a book of bullet points. There is a catalogue and taxonomy of methods for ……testing business ideas. If somebody wants to … test business ideas…this book will help you sound smart.

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Charles D Jessup V

Provided a framework to help me organize all our new projects

Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2020

Verified Purchase

I like how the book breaks down the process for new ideas based on the scientific method:
1. Brainstorm all the hypotheses related to your new business idea
2. Map them onto a 2x2 matrix to prioritize them (the axes are: Importance and Evidence)
3. Systematically test the important hypothesis one at a time. Section 3 lists dozens of possible tests to choose from

I work in the digital innovation department for a big company. This book has helped provide a framework to organize all our new ideas that might become projects, and systematically test them in smart ways that make sense.

13 people found this helpful

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Nichole Elizabeth DeMeré

Early-stage founders, this is perfect for you.

Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2019

Verified Purchase

The more I dig into this book, the more insights I get out of it. It's yet another amazing work by Strategyzer. I recommend this book and all of their books, to be honest.

6 people found this helpful

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Jon Ruark

A modern handbook for quickly building MVPs

Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2021

Verified Purchase

This is my new go-to reference guide for all things business experimentation. The best part of this book is when they string experiments together to prove out longer business needs. There was a lot of thought put into how to assemble experiments so that the reader doesn't waste much time building experiments that don't give them good data.

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