Innovation Acceleration Group Blog

Helping people to learn how to be a better entrepreneur and increasing their chances of success in new ventures is a great challenge and exciting work to be a part of.

“Do or Do not, there is no Try" - Master Yoda

I am quite late to reflect on my experience running the first fully English and International Accelerator in Turkey in partnership with UC Berkeley’s Innovation Acceleration Group; but hey I was trying to get to the ‘inbox zero’ Nirvana. Although I failed at getting the Nirvana of the Inbox Zero, I think I am as close as I can get to ‘We really made a difference’ Nirvana when accelerators are considered.

In business launch processes, the “Minimum Viable Product” or MVP concept is powerful and useful. Unfortunately, misuse of the term “MVP” frequently creates confusion and distraction, wasting time and energy; these negative effects even hinder some projects’ forward progress or contribute to projects failing. To help solve this misuse problem, and the resulting confusion, I am introducing the concept of the “Minimum Useful Demo” or “MUD” in my programs.

On December 1, 2017, I was honored to attend an exclusive event in New Delhi, India with President Obama. I was extended this invitation by the Obama Foundation after being nominated along with around 280 others future leaders of India. I am Manav Subodh, Director of International Development for the Innovation Acceleration Group and Berkeley Executive Education; co-founder of 1M1B (1 Million for 1 Billion), a job creation initiative that aims to create 1 million leaders and entrepreneurs who will drive 1 billion people out of poverty.

For the past 4 years, Sam Shames has transformed his position from CTO to the Chief Enthusiasm Officer at Embr Labs. In the fall of 2014, the IAG team worked with Sam and his co-founders from MIT during the Intel Make It Wearable Challenge. This challenge was based on IAG's Enterprise Startup Engagement program. The goal was to create a global challenge for startups to create wearable technology by implementing the, then newly released, Intel Edison chip. IAG worked with the startups to teach them how to validate and pitch their businesses, while Intel worked with the engineers to develop a working prototype.

On July 26th, 2017, I spoke on a panel in San Francisco called "Innovation Bridge: Technology, Startups and Europe’s Connection to Silicon Valley."

The Bay Area Economic Foundation organized the event.  I suspect they invited me because I was once CEO of a venture-backed European startup that moved its headquarters to Silicon Valley, and now I lead and teach innovation and entrepreneurship accelerators that span the globe.  

Robert Bosch GmbH (Bosch) has established itself as a global leader in innovation and continuous improvement.  For more than 12 years, Bosch executives have partnered with  startups , universities and other outside partners to evolve and drive the company's innovation culture.  More recently, Bosch demonstrated its increasing commitment to continuous reinvention with the creation of a corporate-level division, fully dedicated to Business Model Innovation.  The company's considerable success with these efforts is evident in its ongoing delivery of innovative, market-changing new products, services, and business models, and in the increasing engagement of Bosch employees, who are embracing innovation and structured risk-taking across all divisions in increasing numbers.  This cross-divisional, multi-level commitment to structured innovation processes is accelerating market-validated, team-driven innovations.

What if “innovation” was a repeatable business process your employees could do every day?

What if you didn’t have to hire Steve Jobs and create crazy Silicon Valley-style incentive plans and “innovation outposts” to reliably create new products and services that keep pace with the technology and business model disruptions startups take advantage of?