Does your solution create value for stakeholders? In this part, we're going to take a look at really connecting this concept of value innovation with stakeholders. To include, but also to go beyond, your direct customers. And this is the second element that we're going to examine within opportunity identification. So, what do we mean by stakeholders? Well, at the bottom, it's certainly customers. The people that have direct influence and impact and benefit of the product that you're bringing to market. As we work around the circle, it also references your suppliers. The individuals that are supplying materials or resources or content to you, for you to bring forward to those customers. Investors are also a large stakeholder. Individuals that are putting money into you. Be it as traditional investment. Be it as loans. Be it as other crowd funded mechanisms. But people that, in some fashion, are putting money into the venture certainly have a stake in its success or not. There are also a variety of other stakeholders we want to consider. There may be institutions or communities, environment that you might be adding value to. Or you might be presenting some hurdles or even some negative impacts to pending your venture. Well, we want to be aware of all of these elements, before we bring our product to market, so that we know what to anticipate, what we can mitigate, and what we can prepare for. So, who influences the success of a physician? So, if you look at a physician and you think about that doctor as an entrepreneur, if they're a private practice type doctor. Well, patients are their customer and the source of really, their relationship. And without customers, in the context of patients, for most doctors, most general practitioners, they would be out of business. Well, you know and I know that there's more to it and that there are other people that doctors have to engage and participate in that are their stakeholders. And they are a lot of them. And while they vary in level of influence and role and responsibility, country to country, and even to an extent perhaps, state to state. We want to talk a little bit about some of the other stakeholders that are commonly appearing in most societies and for most doctors. On the blue fields on the far left, we want to recognize that there are often prescriptions that doctors write. Or instruments that they may use to take your weight, to take your temperature. That there may be instruments that they use, surgical instruments and the like. There might be other devices. The implantables, the pacemakers, the things of that nature. Well, those are all manufacturing relationships that they have. It's the pharmaceutical, the medical device, the biotec, the distributors, that all play a role in that manufacturing base that are stakeholders for doctors. And their ability to have success and to bring solutions to their market. Among the tan areas, there are a variety of other influences. One is certainly the employers of the patients. And what we see in many societies and throughout the US is that most of your healthcare benefits may, in some fashion, be subsidized or contributed to by your employer. And there are these group healthcare plans that they may have negotiated that employers can optionally provide to their employees. Or maybe requiring those by law in some areas. So in that way, employers play a role in the doctor's success as a source of benefit and funding. The payer that many of these employers may partner with, ultimately, are the insurance companies. And so what we mean in this context by payers is insurance companies, it's probably the largest set, that have a direct role in the relationship and the success of the doctors. There are also regulatory agencies, typically at the federal level, that may have some expectations on what are the norms of practice. What should you do? What could you do? What can't you do? When, at what price, etc. So regulatory agencies, normally in the form of government, will play a large role in the success of doctors as well. In the green areas, there are another whole layer of influencers and stakeholders on the doctors’ success. There are certainly the networks and the hospitals that they may either work within or be affiliated with. There are various other facilities in outpatient centers, and urgent care, and clinics, and a variety of other platforms and entities the doctors are affiliated with as well. And so in this context, while we recognize that at the heart of the matter, maybe physicians and patients, that there's a much broader set of stakeholders that play a role in the success of doctors. And they need to be smart on what are the issues, the concerns, the values that are being provided to these many players as they are going about their business of doctoring. We also want to think and remind you of the value curve and how this can be considered in the context of stakeholders. So, for value curves, we again are looking at these key elements of your product, your features, your benefits, your pricing, and other matters that are critical to what you are providing. And we want to think about how these play a role in the stakeholders that we are serving. So just as you've done value curves, and really thinking about value provided to your customer, we'd encourage you to think about value curves as a tool to explore what value you provide to your stakeholders. And in this context, we also want you to think about, are there additional concerns, different concerns, that matter to your stakeholders, your suppliers? And in this case, it may be the employers, it may be the insurance companies, it may be the regulatory agencies that may be different than what matters to your end customer and the patient. A couple of common things are elements of privacy, and legality, and liability. We often have individuals that develop a concept that they want to serve college students. In some cases, these are college students that we work with that have developed a product or solution that they want to promote or sell to other college students, and desire the university to play a role in doing that. Well, there are a variety of reasons that universities may not want to do that. One is certainly privacy. While they may have emails for every university student on campus, they may not want to use that email for the purpose of promoting the goods and services of a private company that's separate of the university. They may not want to necessarily spam their students with email for everybody that has a product that they think students may be interested in. There's also an element of legality. Particularly with public universities, universities that have federal or state funding. They might be in some way constrained of promoting certain products or promoting certain companies at the consequence of not promoting all. There's also an element of liability. If a university is promoting something and there's some measure of harm or unintended consequence that comes out of that that they may have not seen or anticipated. Is the fact that they may have been in some measure of partnership with that individual product or service, that caused that harm, make the university liable? Make the university owe money? Or bear some responsibility for any ill impacts that were derived from consumers that used that product? So again, a variety of factors come into play when you're thinking about intermediaries, when you're thinking about stakeholders, and what are some of the reasons that they may want to work with you and want to collaborate with you. And inversely, what are some of the hurdles that may inhibit, or limit, or restrict them from wanting to work with you or be a part of your solution? Regulators are also something to keep in mind. Now the regulatory environment is certainly different, state to state, country to country. But it's important to recognize what needs to happen at what stage. And based on the type of business, or the type of service that you have in mind, what are the regulations that you need to abide by? What are the laws that you need to abide by for your business? So in summary, we want to think about validating the value curve. Not only for customers, but also think about value in the context of stakeholders. And we want to understand the role of stakeholders. That the right partnerships and the right collaborations can be tremendously helpful for a startup. If someone else has a relationship with customers. If someone else has a brand that resonates with customers. If somebody else has a gap in their offerings that you can fill, and together, you can bring that product or service to market in a bigger and better way, that can be a great relationship. Inversely, if there are stakeholders that you want to get on board or you need to get on board, but there are going to be some issues or concerns or hurdles to doing that, you want to be aware of that. You want to anticipate that. And you want to understand how to tackle that early on. We also want to think about this in the context of developing strategy. Of reaching the right customers, in the right order. We'll talk about that when we look at things like market segmentation and go-to-market strategy. And we want to recognize that key stakeholders can be very helpful as you want to navigate these elements. And the key stakeholders, again, can help grow what you're doing. Or they may inhibit what you're doing. And we want to be aware of that and examine that very early on as we're evaluating and identifying the opportunity.
