Corporate Explorers have an ability to find a gap, to see something that does not work right, which inspires them (and others) toward constructing a solution.  To hone your ability to identify a compelling venture:

1. Use the Hunting Zone template in our workbook to describe where you’ll explore- a market, customer segment, job to be done, type of business model, or type of problem.
   
   
2. Use the Corporate Explorer Business Design canvas to refine and communicate your idea— page 76 of The Corporate Explorer 
   
   
3. Focus on Chapters 2: Corporate Explorers in Action and Chapter 4: Ideation- Generating Ideas for New Ventures in The Corporate Explorer which describe passionate Explorers and how to hone your idea.
   
   
4. In the Corporate Explorer Fieldbook: How to Build New Ventures in Established Companies, read Chapter 5, From Explorer’s Insight to Opportunity Story, by George Glackin.
   

Corporate Explorers ignite and sustain a spirit of exploration- they dare to go where others do not. These are leaders capable of closing the gap between knowing what needs to be done to grow new businesses and doing so.  Be inspired and learn the formula for crafting a compelling strategic ambition.

1. Be inspired by fellow Corporate Explorers.  Read their stories in our series Corporate Explorers to Watch in 2021 and watch their videos here.
   
   
2. Read Chapter 3: Strategic Ambition in The Corporate Explorer to understand the 3-part formula for crafting a compelling ambition.
   
   
3. Get ideas from the Strategic Ambitions of leaders disrupting their own industries
   
   
4. Listen to Charles O’Reilly and Andy Binns talk to innovation guru Steve Blank about how to create an innovation insurrection. 
   
   
5. In the Corporate Explorer Fieldbook: How to Build New Ventures in Established Companies, read Chapter 1, Strategy Manifesto: Answering the Big “Why” by Andrew Binns and UNIQA CEO Andreas Brandstetter.
   

Winning sponsors is key to the long-term survival of a new venture.  You need a variety of supporters to enable access to the business, neutralize opposition, and broaden understanding of the venture. To learn how to activate a broader coalition both within and outside the organization: 

1. Read Chapter 10: Silent Killers of Exploration to understand the organizational threats to your venture and Chapter 11: The Double Helix: How Corporate Explorers Lead Innovation and Change to learn how to overcome them. 
   
   
2. Conduct a Social Network Analysis and complete your Influence Strategy to pinpoint and address sources of support and opposition within your organization.
   
   
3. Read our HBR article on The Ambidextrous CEO to learn how senior leaders can manage the tension between core and explore businesses.
   
   
4. In the Corporate Explorer Fieldbook: How to Build New Ventures in Established Companies, read Chapter 17, Leading High-Stakes Conversations: Getting the Senior Team Onboard and Chapter 18, Leadership Movement: Enrolling Others in the Work of Transformation.
   

Your success as a Corporate Explorer depends as much on teaching the executives how to manage uncertainty as it does on proving you have an idea worth investing in.  You need a disciplined innovation process, a way to engage executives with data and insights from experiments, and a system that uses feedforward metrics as lead indicators of progress. 

1. Learn how successful Corporate Explorers Ideate, Incubate and Scale by reading Chapters 4 through 6 in The Corporate Explorer.
   
   
2. Demonstrate progress using Feedforward Metrics that act as lead indicators of progress – see Chapter 8: Explore Business System.
   
   
3. Avoid common innovation system breakdowns; read the Six Most Common Breakdowns in the Process for Disruptive Innovation or download the whitepaper.
   
   
4. Learn how Explorers are Beating the Odds of Disruption by managing uncertainty.
   
   
5. Read the award-winning California Management Review article by Andy Binns and Charles O’Reilly’- The Three Stages of Disruptive Innovation.
   
   
6. In the Corporate Explorer Fieldbook: How to Build New Ventures in Established Companies, read Chapter 8, Business Model Maturity: Using Customer Evidence and Chapter 11 Business Experiments:  De-risking Execution Spend Through Experiments