Brainstorm Exercise: The 4-Minute Business

From time to time the Innovate or Die Blog will present brainstorming exercises you can use in your organization to get the creative and entrepreneurial juices flowing. The following exercise was originally exposed to us by Jim Bartek of Purdue Innovation Center at Purdue Research Park in Indianapolis as part of Startup Weekend Indianapolis.

4 Minute Business

1. Give each participant in your group two post-it notes and a marker.
2. Each participant should write one word (nouns, verbs adverbs only) on each post-it note. The more random the better, so encourage creativity.
3. Each participant sticks their post-it notes to a wall surface so that when all individuals have completed the task the surface has a random mix of nouns and verbs.
4. Divide participants into small teams of 3 or 4 persons (2 if the main group is less than 12, individuals if the group is less than 6).
5. Each team selects one person to go to the front of the room to select two different words (not necessarily the two words from the same participant).
6. Instruct the teams they now have four minutes to devise a 60-second business pitch for a company who’s name is a combination of the two words (Ex. “Database Earth” or “Earth Database”). In their pitch, the group should be able to communicate the problem they are solving, how their solution works and why the market will buy their solution. They can define the market as much or little as they want in 60 seconds. Advise them the winner will be selected by their peers for the best communicated concept.
7. Start your timer or stopwatch. Should out as 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minute, 30 seconds, and 10 seconds remain. At the “stop” all conversations must cease.
8. One member of each team presents their business to the group.
9. Group votes for who had the most well thought-out plan by a round of applause.

Lesson & Outcome: This brainstorming exercise is designed to force participants to make decisions quickly and focus their message. Participants should understand that getting to a concise and simple business objective is critical in launching a new business. Too many extraneous details will result in a poor pitch, just as trying to accomplish too much with a new business venture will slow down progress or dilute the objective being accomplished.