Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship, BYU Marriott School
Nathan Furr is an assistant professor of entrepreneurship at BYU’s Marriott School, in the Department of Organizational Leadership and Strategy. He received his Ph.D from Stanford University in Strategy, Entrepreneurship, and Organizations, and has written numerous articles and is co-author of Nail It Then Scale It. He is also the author of The New Entrepreneur, a blog on Forbes.com. At BYU’s Marriott School, he teaches as part of the Crocker Innovation Fellowship, an interdisciplinary course on entrepreneurship, as well as award-winning new ventures and entrepreneurship courses.
On the show, Professor Furr began by discussing the dichotomy between design thinking and the lean start-up movement – or lack thereof – as he explained that the two only refer to different starting points in solving customer problems effectively and efficiently. Dr. Furr also spoke about the example of Inuit as a firm that recognized stagnant growth and rebounded by finding a way to integrate design thinking and a lean start-up process to gain the nimbleness of start-up in a large and successful company. Finally, he introduced his concept of “painstorming,” which refers to a method of plotting and visualizing the problems and/or pains that a (potential) customer is actually facing. This provides a much better visualization of the problem.
