From Product Innovation to Strategy Innovation: Pivot #2 for More Unicorns…Everywhere

Should entrepreneurship development infrastructure, i.e. business schools, incubators and zone developers, move away from product orientation, which has helped 1% of unicorn entrepreneurs (EU ), strategy orientation, which helped 99%?

Entrepreneurial development today focuses on finding viable products, promoting them through pitch competitions and shark tanks, and funding them with angel capital and venture capital (VC), it is i.e. the Product-Angels-VC method, to build a growth business.

But is this the best strategy for entrepreneurial development?

Consider how some of the great entrepreneurs of the last 60 years, i.e. the era of venture capital, grew up:

Microsoft: Gates bought the operating system and knocked mighty IBM off its perch by negotiating a licensing deal for the IBM PC without IBM having exclusivity or an option to buy. Gates used his personal capital and licensing revenue to close the deal and get off the ground. He accepted VC after launch because he wanted advisers with in-game skin. VC was not the key to his success.

Walmart: Sam Walton built Walmart and beat Kmart starting with $25,000 from his in-laws. His early strategy was to initially focus on the rural market, dominate it, and use those profits to launch an unassailable assault on Kmart's urban stronghold. There was nothing unique about his idea and VC didn't factor into his success - he didn't use it.

Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg beat Rupert Murdoch by mimicking MySpace and improving strategy. Zuckerberg did it with a brilliant strategy, not with a single idea. He focused on college students and used capital from family and friends. He used angel capital and venture capital, but only after proving his company's unicorn potential.

· Wayfair: Niraj Jain made Wayfair an online giant without venture capital until he established his company's dominance in the online furniture industry. Its first round of capital was $36 million when the company was 10 years old and had around $600 million in sales. This is not early stage VC. This is late stage capital.

The reality among the $85 billion unicorn entrepreneurs is that only 1% have secured tech-based venture capital. Unicorn-Entrepreneurs mainly obtained VC, if they needed it, after strategic innovation, i.e. after developing, proving and implementing the strategy of a potential unicorn. 76% never got a resume.

Strategic innovation and execution skills created 99 times more unicorns than product innovation because:

· Most products can be imitated and improved upon.