#101: Getting to market

There are a few different starting points in executing your strategy. This is where the 'universe is created' and you discover or invent 'why it is created':

• Build a business from ground up. If you live in Silicon Valley, CA, you may well start in your garage. This may also be done occasionally by established companies that incubate new businesses. Sometimes this is done part time by people who work in a day job, but want to transition to doing something different.
  
• Buy (acquire) a business, but keep it separate from you other businesses. This is done when you want to broaden your portfolio and diversify risks.
  
• Buy a business and integrate (merge) it with your current businesses. This is done when you want to get bigger and stronger to increase your competitiveness, market share and profits. This is the 'buy' not 'buid' approach.
  
• Launch a new product that is evolutionary or revolutionary in your current business. Same as the previous point, this is 'build' not 'buy' approach.
  
• Create a new business model and spin it off as a subsidiary.
• Create a joint venture and a business model to support it, spin it off as a separate company.
• Create a new business model that will leverage and even transform your current businesses. This is the hardest of them all, like changing or replacing your engines while in flight.
  

Each scenario calls for a different set of capabilities. Break it down to get it done using one of the above scenarios as a starting point.