We have to dream, and keep our feet on the ground at the same time. Today, thanks to democratized access to technology, we have possibilities that would have been unimaginable a few years ago. At the same time, there are challenges of all kinds that have not yet been solved and that represent not only global problems that need to be solved, but also important business opportunities. In this article I introduce a new open methodology, called Purpose Launchpad, that enables entrepreneurs and entities of all kinds to build purpose-driven organizations to create massive impact in the world.

We are all in this world to create something that did not exist before we were born, this is the best way to leave a mark and achieve immortality. We no longer have excuses for not doing so, we all have access to a number of technologies (Computing, Internet, 3D Printing, Drones, etc.) that allow us to create new products, services and companies that a few years ago would have been science fiction.

However, it’s not all about technology. It’s about creating something new that offers value to the world. Inventing is when we create something new, innovating is when we create something new that sells, either because there are customers willing to pay for it or users who invest their time using the product or service we have created.

As Steve Blank used to say, “there is no innovative business plan that can withstand the first contact with real customers”. Steve’s point was that, by definition, any new idea we may have is always a hypothesis (until it is proven to actually work) and, therefore, rather than just writing a business plan and executing it, what we need to do is to evaluate our ideas with the market before building a product or service that may fail.

Life is too short to spend months or even years creating something that no one will use. For this reason, a few years ago, different innovation methodologies began to emerge that allowed us to define
WHAT
we must build to generate real value. In this sense, there are methodologies such as the one created by Steve Blank himself called Customer Development (which tells us that, before building our product, we must answer the question of who our real customer is and what he needs), Lean Startup (which helps us, among other things, to conduct experiments when developing our product with rapid iterations and learn based on real data), Design Thinking (which helps us to empathize with customers to find their needs and align them to what is technologically feasible and to the company’s strategy), and many other innovation processes and tools.

It is useless to know what we should develop if we do not build our product and/or service in the right way. This is why, at the turn of the century, the Agile movement emerged to facilitate the correct way to
HOW
build software products in a way that is more adaptable to the changing environment and focused on delivering value to the end user. In this sense, work environments such as Scrum and Kanban stand out, which allow software developers to create products in the right way and which, in addition, have been extended to other fields of application beyond software. In fact, methodologies and processes have been created based on the above innovation methodologies and the aforementioned agility principles that help us reduce uncertainty when designing a product or service in just a few days (such as Google’s Design Sprint) or how to transform a traditional company into an exponential organization oriented towards an abundance business model through the use of the
ExO Canvas
(which I published in the book ‘Exponential Transformation’ together with Salim Ismail).

However, to be successful we not only have to answer the questions of what and how to create an innovative company, product or service. We were still missing the most important question of all:
WHY
we created this new product, service or company. The answer to this question is purpose. In this sense, as I have already mentioned on previous occasions, there is a great tendency to create products, services and purpose-driven companies; as is being stated by important entities such as Harvard University in one of the latest issues of its business magazine. The main tool for defining the purpose of a person or organization is the MTP Canvas.
MTP Canvas
(which I published in the book ‘Massive Transformational Purpose’ together with Ángel María Herrera) and which can be used in a complementary way to all the innovative and agile methodologies, processes and tools mentioned above.

The good news today is that, as we have seen, there are numerous methodologies, processes and tools that allow us to innovate in the right way. However, it is not enough to apply these tools in an isolated way, we have to combine all these tools in a correct way and, at the same time, continue to answer other main questions that are not solved by the previously mentioned methodologies, such as WHO we should have in the team, HOW MANY resources we will need to generate a sustainable model, etc. And precisely Purpose Launchpad arises with the aim of providing a comprehensive proposal for any person or organization that intends to create something new, that brings value to the world in a sustainable, scalable and possibly exponential way.

Purpose Launchpad is an open meta-methodology that helps entrepreneurs and entities of all kinds generate and evolve early-stage ideas into purpose-driven organizations to create massive impact in the world. Purpose Launchpad integrates the latest methodologies, processes and the most recognized tools in terms of innovation and development of products, services and organizations.

Purpose Launchpad implements a series of principles for the continuous evolution and development of the following eight areas or Purpose Launchpad Axes:

• Purpose: The beginning of everything, which gives continuous meaning to our project.

• People: Here we develop both the internal team and the communities we connect with to facilitate the development of our purpose and/or business, applying processes such as Design Thinking and empathy maps.

• Customer: Here we incorporate techniques such as, for example, Customer Development to discover the type of customer and the needs we need to address.

• Abundance: We apply the different ExO (Exponential Organizations) attributes to connect and manage abundance properly.

• Viability: We ensure that we can develop a sustainable business model, while defining and implementing the right investment model.

• Processes: Ideas are worthless, it is the execution that matters. We implement agile methodologies and the necessary processes to execute the initiative in the right way.

• Product: It is necessary to iteratively develop products, starting with tools such as the Value Proposition Canvas and MVP (Minimum Viable Product) development.

• Metrics: It is useless to act if we do not measure in order to learn. We implement approaches such as Innovation Accounting.

All the above axes include different types of methodologies and tools for their correct development, but, of course, the most important thing is to know initially the state of evolution of each one of them. The Purpose Launchpad

Purpose Launchpad Assessment

allows us to assess the current status of our initiative in the different areas, answering 24 questions and giving us a result similar to the one shown below.

Purpose Launchpad evolves initiatives based on three phases of evolution, which require different ways of managing the different axes seen above:

• Explore: In the beginning, we don’t even know what we don’t know and need to discover different possibilities for each of the key aspects of our initiative (who our customer is, what product/service they need, who should make up the team, what metrics to measure, etc.). In this phase, we will use different methodologies such as Design Thinking to uncover key real-world issues.

• Evaluate: Once we discover potential ways to make our purpose a reality, we will begin to conduct experiments to evaluate which of these ways is the best to further develop it. Here we will use different methodologies, such as Customer Development, to further evaluate our key hypotheses.

• Impact: Once we have validated our key hypotheses, have early adopters (initial customers) happy with our product/service, are properly connected to abundance, etc. it is time to focus on growing our initiative and managing abundance to eventually create massive impact.

Finally, I would like to tell you a little secret… something that I have been very clear about since I decided to start developing this methodology in 2012 and in which more than 150 innovation experts from all over the world have participated, contributing with your input and feedback during the last phases of development:

Purpose Launchpad aims not only to develop new purpose-driven organizations, but more importantly to help entrepreneurs, innovators and

mentors

evolve their mindset to create a positive impact on the world.