Flashpoint Program

Deliberate Innovation Flashpoint helps founders become proficient at leading a Deliberate Innovation process. Deliberate Innovators work to identify true non-indifference in their customers and build not just products that their customers want, but the products they cannot not buy. Deliberate Innovation is a new approach that was developed by applying research from behavioral economics - the science of how people make judgments; developmental psychology - the science of mapping the ways in which people might be immune to change; social psychology - the environmental forces that influence people’s behavior; and business fundamentals. This approach helps founders notice the biases, assumptions, and the situational paths that their customers are subject to and use these insights to build products their customers authentically demand. The Flashpoint program offers founders training in deliberate innovation concepts and techniques, support in using those techniques, and provides a high level of individualized mentorship. Working with Flashpoint, founders generate business philosophies about customers and their situations. They then work toward actionable truth by testing to disconfirm these theories about customers, modifying them, and retesting. Deliberate Innovators apply this process methodically to develop a direct path to their customers and think clearly about their business. FLASHPOINT FAQs Deliberate Innovation is a process that helps founders learn principles and techniques to find genuine unmet demand and build scalable companies to satisfy it. PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS TEAM PARTNERS RESOURCES CONTACT Is Flashpoint an accelerator? It’s more. Flashpoint helps founders manage their startups through a unique program that accelerates the process of finding authentic demand and building a company around it. Alumni and investors say that the Flashpoint program compresses more than a year of work into a short cohort, and often enables startups to move fast enough to avoid a round of funding. What is Deliberate Innovation? Deliberate Innovation is a new approach that was developed by applying research from behavioral economics - the science of how people make judgments; developmental psychology - the science of mapping the ways in which people might be immune to change; social psychology - the environmental forces that influence people’s behavior; and business fundamentals. This is the process we use to build startups. . How is it similar to accelerators I know about? Common attributes: Many teams apply. Flashpoint filters and accepts about a dozen startups into every cohort. Each team receives a $20k investment from our associated investment fund. We connect teams with Flashpoint mentors and alumni who have expertise to offer the startups. The Flashpoint community has dinner together at special Tuesday night gatherings where teams present and Flashpoint alumni hang out with speakers who often fly in from the Bay Area, Boston or NYC. Teams work in a great shared space in Tech Square. Each Flashpoint cohort runs four months and we run two cohorts a year. At the end of each cohort, there are demo days for investors in Atlanta, NYC, and San Francisco. I’m a serial entrepreneur, is there anything here for me? Welcome. Nearly all Flashpoint founders have led startups before, and many of them have multiple, successful exits. Here’s one Flashpoint founder’s perspective: “I’ve built enough successful companies and divisions of companies to know something. At Flashpoint I learned to think and understand things in a new way. It’s changed how we’re building our current company and how I’ll build companies in the future.” (Kurt Uhlir) Can you help us find additional funding? Yes. Many active angel investors and venture firms with early-stage interests are looking to work with Flashpoint teams. What’s the Flashpoint story? Flashpoint started as an experiment around innovation in 2011. Flashpoint alumni include startup founders with dreams of for-profit and not-for-profit companies and large corporations. As of 2018, over 150 founders have gone through the Flashpoint program, and companies originated at Flashpoint have a market value of approximately $1.4 billion. How are things going? Since the program began in 2011, Flashpoint has developed a strong reputation for producing successful startups. To date, the Center for Deliberate Innovation at Georgia Tech has worked with eight cohorts of innovators in the Flashpoint program, five from Flashpoint Management Company. The first five-year numbers are promising. Founders have raised north of $300 million from leading venture capital firms, including Moseley Ventures, TechOperators, ff Venture Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures, Andreesen Horowitz, Sigma Prime, New World Ventures, and Meritech Capital Partners. These startups have a market value of over $1.4 billion. Less than $3 million of local angel money was invested to achieve these results. The work with corporate innovation teams has led to products in the market, Sleep Water for Coke in Japan, and to pull a product from market, when a Canadian multinational sold assets as a result of discovering there would be no market demand. Who runs Flashpoint? Dr. Merrick Furst is the Founder and Director of the Flashpoint program. After the programs continued success, Merrick Furst and San Francisco investor Matt Chanoff spun off Flashpoint program into the Flashpoint Management Company, an independent company, that works with the Center for Deliberate Innovation at Georgia Tech. Matt is the President of the Flashpoint Management Company. Merrick is the Founder and Director of the Center for Deliberate Innovation at Georgia Tech. As the first Distinguished Professor at the College of Computing and Director of the Center for Deliberate Innovation at Georgia Tech, Merrick developed the deliberate innovation approach and the highly regarded Threads curriculum. Merrick is also the co-founder of internet security firm Damballa. Merrick was the founder and CEO of Essential Surfing Gear, a SF-based technology company acquired in 2001. Merrick was also president and director of the International Computer Science Institute at University of California at Berkeley. Matt Chanoff is a co-director of Profounder LLC, a seed stage investment fund specializing in internet security and game technologies. He has led global electronics market consulting and forecasting projects since 1997. He has designed and implemented broad-scale market evaluations and market-entry strategies in the United States, China, and Southeast Asia for Fortune 500 companies in electronics manufacturing, components, high-tech materials, software, automotive market and aftermarket, chemicals, investment, and professional services. Matt has taught business planning and trade economics in Vietnam and China, and is a co-author of the China Trade Manual. Matt also serves on several corporate and nonprofit boards for companies in the internet security area and nonprofits in the areas of education and poverty alleviation.