This approach to entrepreneurship increases your market knowledge: as a potential user, you know the problem, how you’re currently trying to solve it, and what dimensions of performance matter. And you can use this knowledge to avoid much of the market risk in building a new product. “Scratch your own itch,” is one of the most influential aphorisms in entrepreneurship. MORE

market) risk obsolescence or irrelevance. Keep your company fighter-pilot agile in any turbulent or changing market. In a complex world where predictability is impossible and innovation and risk are necessary to survive and thrive, mistakes are not only acceptable, but welcome. MORE

” Survey respondents included Presidents, Chief Information Officers, Chief Analytics Officers, Chief Marketing Officers, and Chief Data Officers representing 50 industry giants, including American Express, Capital One, Disney, Ford Motors, General Electric, JP Morgan, MetLife, Nielsen, Turner Broadcasting, United Parcel Service, and USAA. Companies that fail to adapt do so at their own competitive and market risk. Laura Schneider for HBR. MORE

And, as you probably know, leverage can also move the stock market. In the July-August Elliott Wave Theorist , Robert Prechter discussed the role of leverage in sending the market to new price highs. You have nothing to lose and exclusive market insights to gain. MORE

When executives evaluate a potential investment, whether it's to build a new plant, enter a new market, or acquire a company, they weigh its cost against the future cash flows they expect will spring from it. The very lack of consensus in CAPM interpretation, he thought, was consistent with the workings of healthy and efficient markets. "It How can that be when the same information about the stock's underlying company and markets are available to both? MORE

Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) and Chief Risk Officers (CROs) may seem to have little in common. But in the aftermath of the financial crisis, risk managers have become increasingly involved in business strategy and decisions. Use risk data as an avenue for innovation. MORE

Guest post from Tom Panaggio : Risk is everywhere, and while common sense and consultants tell you to minimize risk, I suggest the opposite. I maintain that embracing what I call the "two essential risks" is necessary to achieve your ultimate success in business. MORE

For example, Drew Houston’s March 2008 Digg video for Dropbox generated 70K signups for a product that hadn’t been released yet — and went a long way in confirming product-market fit. While useful, invalidating MVPs are only possible when better products can be produced in small batches — making them difficult when product quality depends on scale of use or when low-quality alternatives abound in the market. Test market risk first. MORE

Is market performance predictable for a specific product or class of products? For products that cannot be predicted, we should focus on recognition — on trying to identify as quickly and cheaply as possible whether a product is succeeding when it’s actually introduced in the market, and create production and distribution processes that are flexible enough to adapt to our recognition of success or failure. Look at the variance of your new-market products. MORE

In an essay earlier this week on the evolution of money and finance, GigaOM founder and venture capitalist Om Malik argued that crowdfunding will be the new day trading, the latest financial innovation to “cut costs and [drive] wider participation in a previously closed and clubby market.” ” ( Subsequent research determined that fewer than 1% of day traders consistently beat the market.) MORE

If your ideas are met with choruses of “that will never work,” “we can’t take that risk,” “let’s just stick with the plan,” your teammates are likely falling prey to a common decision making bias that former Rotman dean Roger Martin refers to as Underestimating the Risk of the Status Quo. Martin describes how executive teams carefully explore the risk of different courses of action, but neglect to make a similar assessment of the risk of staying the course. MORE

Investors don’t like risk any better than you do. If you’re raising money before traction is in hand, so-called “market risk” is higher than if demand has already been proven. More than two generations ago, the venture capital community — VCs, business angels, incubators, and others — convinced the entrepreneurial world that writing business plans and raising venture capital constituted the twin centerpieces of entrepreneurial endeavor. MORE

Adding a chief marketing officer (CMO) became crucial as new channels and media raised the complexity of brand building, while Chief strategy officers (CSOs) joined top teams to help grapple with complex and fast-changing global markets. Because the new data analytics horizons typically span a range of functions, including marketing, risk, and operations, the C-suite evolution may take a variety of paths. MORE

Let me first state that there are two types of failures, the first are those that do nothing and fail, the second are those that take a risk and end up failing. The fact is that businesses will not assume the risks necessary for innovation and development if they’re not ok with the idea of failing on some level. The problem with fearing failure is that you ultimately avoid risk, don’t bet on yourself or your business, and stunt your richest experiences. MORE

Because they are pursuing a novel opportunity while lacking access to required resources, entrepreneurs face considerable risk, which comes in four main types. Demand risk relates to prospective customers' willingness to adopt the solution envisioned by the entrepreneur. MORE

In estimating the cost of equity, nearly nine out of ten organizations use the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), which calculates the cost of equity using a risk-free rate, beta factor, and a market risk premium, each of which introduces significant variability. Book vs. Market Weighting Factors Used for Debt and Equity in Calculation of WACC. . Current market debt/equity ratio. Current book debt/current market equity ratio. Country risk rating model. MORE

Even social business will not address those issues for which markets cannot be developed. Philanthropy is the market for love. Amazon was permitted to forgo investor returns for six years to build market dominance. MORE

For example, Drew Houston''s March 2008 Digg video for Dropbox generated 70K signups for a product that hadn''t been released yet — and went a long way in confirming product-market fit. While useful, invalidating MVPs are only possible when better products can be produced in small batches — making them difficult when product quality depends on scale of use or when low-quality alternatives abound in the market. Test market risk first. MORE

He then goes on to search other phrases pertaining to deflation and inflation, which you can learn more about via a risk-free read of the Theorist. This article quotes a market firm''s chief economist, "Weakness remains broad-based, with Germany stagnating, France contracting steeply and the rest of the region also clearly entrenched in an ongoing downturn of worrying severity.". Preview what''s inside and learn how to get your risk-free review. Stock Market What is MORE