Innovator's Dilemma - Innovation Quote

Exploration is the engine that drives innovation. Innovation drives economic growth. So let's all go exploring. - Edith Widder

Innovator's Dilemma - Rowan Gibson's 4 lenses

Thanks to a Forbes article by Martin Zwilling, I am simply helping make viral the essence of what I view as compelling thinking of a successful mindset for innovation.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/martinzwilling/2015/02/24/how-smart-entrepreneurs-make-innovation-look-easy/

Martin Zwilling introduces us to/reminds us of Rowan Gibson - a reknowned thinker in innovation.  In his new book, Gibson posits that effective, breakthrough innovative thinking is fundamentally grounded in diligent assessment encompassing what Gibson calls four ‘lenses’:

1)   Questioning deeply-held beliefs and assumptions. The willingness to challenge accepted approaches and propose non-obvious alternatives is one of the fundamental driving forces for innovation. This is a thinking pattern and a culture which all entrepreneurs need to instill and nurture in every startup team member.

JB: Completely concurring, I add that this lens applies to not just start-ups, but innovative undertakings in any sized and any type entity (business, government, volunteer, etc.), as well as inter-industry (i.e.: video conferencing can compete with travel industry).  As a rule, accepted approaches are mostly followed, occasionally tweaked. The ripest opportunities are for those creative and daring enough to scrutinize conventional wisdom.                    

2)   Spotting and exploiting emerging trends. Innovative entrepreneurs have to start with a mindset of welcoming change, rather than trying to resist it. They don’t have to be futurists, they just have to be in the current time, not behind the times. Then they have to look for change, and continually hone their skills to turn discontinuity into opportunity.

JB: Strongly concurring, I gravitate more toward the notion of ‘better’ and ‘solve’ rather than ‘change’ as change is not always better nor does change always solve.  As Edison is attributed with famously saying,”… if I asked my customers what they wanted they would have said faster horses …” – this notion does convey a reality that customers/the marketplace  is not the only source of discerning need and opportunity.  Innovators with insight and vision can see opportunities to make improvements and actually enlighten customers/the marketplace with what-if ideas that connect dots in completely different ways. 

3)   Redeploying skills and assets in new ways. Innovators leverage existing skills and assets in new ways, new contexts, and new combinations, rather than assuming that new resources are needed for new opportunities. Strategic partnerships with other companies are a good way to extend the boundaries of your business and recombine resources.

JB: Strongly concurring in this context – it depends on the environment where the innovator is operating.  For instance, in an entity looking to evolve from legacy solutions and/or harness opportunity in emerging areas that are outside the entity’s sweet spot, creative innovators may find dart throwing leadership controlling purse strings more willing to accept a pathway that at least in the near term, redeploys skills, assets, core competencies – possibly with some work around approaches – to validate marketplace interest before fully unleashing full, long term investment commitments.  Conversely, other environments may be governed by thinking that has decided to at least significantly break from legacy-everything.  Certainly the strategic partnership/ alliance tactic can be a smart way to transition into innovative opportunity as well – with or without redeploying internal skills, assets & core competencies … depending on a variety of variables in each circumstance.  

4)   Paying attention to unmet needs and frustrations. It all starts with a customer perspective to uncover problems and frustrations, and then design solutions from the customer backward. But customers also tend to think linearly, so they don’t always know what they want. It’s up to you to match what is possible with what is needed.

JB: Completely concur.  This dovetails with my closing point for #2 above.  Again, to optimally innovate via this lens, innovators benefit most from insights into customers/ marketplaces – current as well as outlooks/ projections – for the industry/segment/ space.  Further, be aware of trends and projections for related and/or unrelated spaces ... that may be ripe for a form of convergence – facilitated more effectively via clever innovation.

Thanks to Michael Zwilling, I have added another book to my reading list.

 

Innovator’s Dilemma - Model Uncertainty

What do the following companies .... Discover Financial, Barclaycard, American Express, MasterCard, Visa, HTC, LG Electronics, Motorola Mobility, Samsung Electronics, Research In Motion, Sony Ericsson, Device Fidelity, Capital One and Chase ... all have in common? 

All were involved in partnering with the same company 2010-2015 ... the recently given-up and sold 'Softcard' JV (rebranded from ISIS Mobile Wallet in 2014) between at&t, T-Mobile and Verizon. 

The 'Softcard' (ISIS Mobile Wallet) saga appears to be ripe for a future business case study. Since late 2010 when the ISIS JV was formally announced, these 3

major carriers initially embarked on a form of recycled innovation - to leverage their core competencies to establish a innovative mobile wallet paradigm solution just as mobile wallet usage was poised to achieve critical mass in the US market. In spite of the war chests of these three major Carriers, along with all three Carriers having tested the waters and validated the promise of Carrier billing of eCommerce/mCommere transactions - directly and via evident global trends  (i.e.:  at&t via the organically developed  'ClickAT&T'  Carrier billing

solution early in the prior decade [1999-2000], then again in more recent years via a Amdocs Qpass Digital Commerce solution that incorporated into at&t a Carrier billing of commerce, along with differentiated storefront functionality, included Carrier billing plumbing to reach upwards of 98% of US households via strategic alliance with clearinghouse BSG Solutions [3Q2008]; T-Mobile via Deutsche Telekom's [1Q2010] acquisition of ClickandBuy - a eWallet licensing/ outsourcing solution that had proven its potential as a supplier-partner to BT, Swisscom, TelMex and others; and Verizon that had just a few years earlier [2007] done their due diligence on a thorough 'Verizon ClickandBuy' proposal) - the market waited and waited and waited for the ISIS mobile wallet/Softcard to deliver on its outlook ... until the JV recently gave up [1Q15].

Barely a year later, as the industry awaited the arrival of ISIS in the market, ISIS surprised the market by announcing it was abandoning its model of processing its

own transactions and instead embarking on a model to have credit card companies process ISIS transactions.  In one fell swoop, the differentiation of the ISIS solution all but vanished.  While online merchants for years had hailed Carrier Billing as the Holy Grail of online payments, not only did Credit Card companies see the competitive threat of Carrier Billing but even within leadership ranks of Carriers, support of Carrier Billing - during the booming new reality of the digital economy - was often not fully appreciated and thus not relentlessly supported. 

Of course leaders of innovative solution-models have to be open to marketplace feedback, then consider if new information from clients/prospects/’the-market’ merit rethinking and possibly adjusting or even significantly changing innovative solution-models.  That said, there can be times when model changes are force-  

fed on organizations due to reasons other than genuine market realities.  To illustrate by example, in the early phases of preparing to launch AT&T PrePaid WebCents in 2002, I led pioneering engagements – from evangelizing to deal closing – with marquee web merchants such as Walt Disney Internet Group for their MMP Disney Toontown game and their Disney Blast game, Sony Online Entertainment’s Everquest game, Rhapsody Music service from RealNetworks, Vindigo’s Location Service, Atom Shockwave’s casual games, and other premium content applications.  Premise of innovative model was a new AT&T-branded prepaid card distributed at brick and mortar where larger addressable markets (especially teens) could be reached via what was essentially a currency swap from the physical world to the digital world.  The 'soft-

spot’ in the model pitched to 3^rd party VAS (value added service providers) web merchants was that while AT&T had distribution of pre-paid phone cards at many of the nation’s biggest retailers, none of these retailers had been contracted to carry the new AT&T WebCents card.  The pathway was to assure prospective online merchants that the logical step was to get online merchants onboard first, then circle back to retailer clients to leverage good existing relationships to secure j-hook space for the new AT&T WebCents card that was to be a gateway to an exciting suite of premium content.

While online merchants, then existing retail distribution partners were being brought onboard as planned, a wild card caused a complete flip of the model.  What was the wild card?  Leadership inside AT&T Consumer’s PrePaid BU had made commitments ‘upstairs’ that they would acquire a new marquee retailer – Blockbuster.  However, Blockbuster could not be convinced on the AT&T WebCents model. They insisted that if they were to participate, AT&T had to flip the model so that instead of a new AT&T PrePaid Digital Content gateway card to the likes of Disney, Sony, etc., …. flip it so that it’s ‘Powered by AT&T WebCents’,

but, branded a Disney Toontown card, a Rhapsody Music card, etc.  That flipped model also had sizable incremental cost in that now the online merchants had to bear the costs of designing a new physical product plus pay for advertising (all commitments AT&T had already made in my negotiations with the marquee content providers mentioned above).  Fundamentally every deal had to be resold - and fast, along with selling online merchant leadership to still trust AT&T … and oh by the way, now pay for advertising (for Disney, a 7 figure proposition to re-secure distribution already committed at Wal-Mart).

One prospect (Blockbuster) and one AT&T leader who refused to tell his boss that Blockbuster could not be won … caused the model to be flipped, caused delays in launching and worse.  After challenging internal planning discussions moved to executing the new model, every deal was re-secured … yet at-the-end-of-the-day, even with the new model instituted, Blockbuster still declined to participate on AT&T WebCents - even with the new model they insisted upon put in place.  

Monday morning quarterbacking that Blockbuster saga, could it have been managed differently?  In a perfect world, Blockbuster would have been required to contract before AT&T committed to making a model change, however, based on my knowledge of the leadership at the AT&T Prepaid’s group at that time, this approach would have been dismissed.  Sometimes innovators will encounter personalities and cultures that would challenge even the wisdom of Solomon. 

The model change at ISIS in July 2011, just barely 18 months after announcing the JV in November 2010 resonated because of my above Blockbuster experience on model change for reasons other than what appears apparent …

... an experience that was at (by the way), AT&T (albeit the pre-SBC acquired - and by 2010 and forward - Texas based at&t).  There were legitimate pros and cons to Blockbuster’s theory on the WebCents model.  Blockbuster had a reasonable point that a Disney branded prepaid card may be more quickly understood than a new AT&T branded digital card that gateways to Disney, Sony, [etc.] because consumers only know AT&T prepaid cards for phone service.  The flip side of that is consumers have never encountered a Disney prepaid service of anything.  A downside to Blockbuster’s model is that each web merchant would require a j-hook at brick and mortar (vs. just one j-hook for an AT&T WebCents gateway prepaid card).  Two guys at Blockbuster were set with their opinions with their model theory and believed that over time there could be dozens of branded prepaid cards, and only then would consumers start to grow frustrated with juggling so many different prepaid cards and desire one simple card to access all their premium content across multiple merchants. Other retailers did not have 

this view but were persuaded to go along with the flipped model (based on a new-theory for the model, not because Blockbuster insisted).  Fundamentally, AT&T’s model had to change if there was any chance of winning the Blockbuster account … a commitment a leader prematurely made and now was willing to do anything to try to save the Blockbuster deal … as that leader over the innovative WebCents initiative was measured and rewarded on things beyond WebCents.  He personally had more to gain by acquiring the Blockbuster account than risk in jeopardizing the nascent WebCents initiative. (That leadership demanded that NDAs be ignored as desperation mounted to win Blockbuster mounted ... is a ethics/legal topic for another post another day).

What is clear at 'Softcard (ISIS Mobile Wallet)' is that the mobile wallet JV that was announced in November 2010 by at&t/T-Mobile/Verizon has just recently given-up on the effort when these three JV partners recently sold the JV to Google.  From my vantage point, in spite of a industry (mobile commerce) that is 

among the most exciting and promising in the global economy today, this JV failed to figure out how to succeed - also in spite of all the financial power and brand power they could have leveraged. 

Interestingly, the Clickand-Buy business had more success with their business in Germany (where they did not have a Carrier partner), than in the UK, Switzerland or Mexico (where they had Carrier partners).  Years before Deutsche Telekom acquired ClickandBuy, the ClickandBuy Board decided (in 2008) to cease partnering with Carriers, heeding warnings that consultants and industry experts had advised them on over the years – that Carriers will bleed you to death.  I suspect that personnel involved with Softcard/ISIS Mobile Wallet from Discover Financial, Barclaycard, American Express, MasterCard, Visa, HTC, LG Electronics, Motorola Mobility, Samsung Electronics, Research In Motion, Sony Ericsson, Device Fidelity, Capital One and Chase now may have a better understanding of this notion.  

For innovators in general who may find themselves trying to navigate challenging company cultures and/or influential decision makers with agendas beyond the innovative initiative, probably the best advice I can give is be aware.  No two situations are identical and of course personalities vary.  Innovators expect to encounter countless challenges.  

Relenting innovators find a way ... over ... around ... or through.  

Innovator's Dilemma - Inspiration from Yesteryear's Great Innovators via Academy Award Nominated Movies from Yesteryear

As the Great Lakes and much of North America freezes over with all time historic low temperatures, consider warming up with a couple of Academy Award nominated films from the 1940's about two innovative giants of all-time: Thomas Edison and Marie Curie.  Starring in these two films respectively are greats of yesteryear - Spencer Tracy and Greer Garson.
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THOMAS EDISON

The following link for the trailer of the movie "Edison, The Man" (1940) opens with a long overview of Spencer Tracy's acting career before getting to the actual trailer on Edison, The Man [about half way into the ~2 1/2 minute clip ... which of course builds to Thomas Edison's breakthrough discovery in 1879 that a carbon filament in an oxygen-free bulb glowed but did not burn for up to 40 hours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0WBu2zvNs4

From TCM's review of the movie: A combination of legend and fact, a fast-moving family drama ... set in 1929 with Edison a old man, the bulk of the movie is flash-backs to key steps [successes, challenges & setbacks] along Edison's career. Using extensive photographs and documentary footage, the art department re-created Edison's long abandoned labroatory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, including the more than 10,000 devices he had invented. Popular Mechanics magazine lauded their efforts.

It was Spencer Tracy who gave the film its greatest authenticity.  Having a slight resemblance to Edison, Tracy studied biographies of Edison, as well as all existing film footage on Edison. As Tracy's son John was deaf, Tracy understood how to incorporate Edison's hearing difficulties.  Per TCM, the only part of Edison's characterization that deviated from fact was substituting cigas for Edison's trademark chewing tobacco - at the request of his son Charles Edison.

The challenges Edison faced with funding were interesting, as was the maneuvering by leaders of existing technology (i.e.: gas for lanterns).  That ole Innovator's Dilemma-thing again.

Today in New Jersey there is a wonderful National Historic Park http://www.nps.gov/edis/index.htm where Thomas Edison's home and laboratory are fully restored - where one can see where modern industries were born. Other museums on Edison are in New Jersey and Florida including:

http://www.menloparkmuseum.org   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Alva_Edison_Memorial_Tower_and_Museum http://www.edisonfordwinterestates.org. 

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MARIE CURIE

This trailer similarly opens by heralding the acting career accomplishments of Greer Garson, then segways into the trailer of "Madame Curie" (1943), in which Greer Garson was nominated for Best Actress and co-star acting legend Walter Pigeon (Pierre Curie, her inventor husband) was nominated as Best Actor:  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrURyPLBV44

The film tells the story of Polish-French physicist Marie Curie in 1890s Paris as she begins to share a laboratory with her future husband.  From Wikipedia, Marie Sklowska (Gree Garson) is a poor, idealistic, top performing student living in Paris and studying at the Sorbonne.  She neglects

her health and one day faints during class.  Her tutor, Prof. Perot (no relation to Ross that I am aware of) is sym- pathetic and, finding that she has no friends or family in Paris, invites her to a soirée his wife is throwing for friends (primarily professors). Among them is Pierre Curie (Walter Pidgeon), an extremely shy and absentminded man completely devoted to his work.  A chauvinist (in the movie anyway) concerning women and science, he allows Marie to share his lab as a favor to the tutor, then to his surprise finds Marie is a gifted scientist.                                                                                
Marie is fascinated by a demonstration she saw as an undergraduate of a pitchblende rock that seems to generate enough energy to take small photographs.  Marie decides to make the rock's energy the subject of her doctoral study.  

The Physics Department at the Sorbornne refuses to fund their (Marie & Pierre's) research without more proof of the element's existence, but allows them to use a old shed across from the physics building.  The movie does a nice job overviewing the complexities ad challenges they worked through starting with importing 8 tons of pitchblende ore, then cooking it down through countless iterations as they looked for the visibly elusive new element they were trying discover (which they named 'radium').  The Curies' marathon to achieve the discovery was remarkable.

Museums for Curie are in both France and Poland:

http://www.france.fr/en/museums/curie-museum.html    

http://en.muzeum-msc.pl

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- Imagine if these types of remarkable people typified who our culture focused on and aspired to be like (rather than the vapid who chase celebrity),

- Imagine if foundational education for all citizens was enhanced to explain the journey innovators have - as both Edison and Curie tried to make breakthroughs for years ... but relented.  Further, imagine these enhanced foundational studies educating citizens on the reality of the pathways to innovation - inside various sized companies to one one's own - both with the challenges to secure financial backing (as either a short list priority in a big company or from various forms of independent investors from angel, to seed, all the way to institutional.

- While helpful that there are social media sites (i.e.: MosaicHUB     http://www.mosaichub.com/ ... and certainly others) that facilitate communications between those seeking guidance and those willing to provide guidance, seems like there is opportunity to do better in terms of making all students, all citizens of any age for that matter, aware of the landscape for a career in innovation.   

Innovator's Dilemma - Kudos to Telkom Indonesia for it's incubator (DDB Accelerator)

The linked story speaks for itself ... Telkom Indonesia has the wisdom and courage to embark on helping to facilitate innovation - ideas from both inside and out of telecom.

https://www.techinasia.com/indonesia-telkom-ddb-accelerator-startups/

This story resonate personally for several reasons.  Besides the obvious personal interest in innovation, the first big chapter of my career was not only in telecom, but in a incubator with telecom.  Here's the old war story:

Beginning in the early 1980s, my career dovetailed with AT&T's journey through deregulation. January 1, 1984 was an early milestone - 'Divestiture' where AT&T divested all 22 of the 'local' telephone companies into 7 new regional 'Baby Bell' behemoths ... that then kept evolving over the ensuing decades after the 1984 Divestiture:

1) Ameritech [umbrellaing Indiana Bell, Ohio Bell, Illinois Bell, Michigan Bell & Wisconsin Bell], later to be acquired by SBC (formally named Southwestern Bell in 1999),

2) Bell Atlantic [umbrellaing New Jersey Bell, Bell of Pennsylvania, Diamond State Telephone and Chesapeake & Potomac Telecom], later to merge with GTE in 2000 and become Verizon, 

3) Bell South [umbrellaing Southern Bell {where I started my AT&T career} and Southcentral Bell], later to be acquired by [the new, Texas based] at&t in 2006.

4) NYNEX [umbrellaing New York Telephone and New England Telephone], later to merge with Bell Atlantic in 1997 and take the Bell Atlantic name, 

5) Pacific Telesis/PacTel [umbrellaing Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell], later acquired by SBC (formally named Southwestern Bell) in 1997, 

6) Southwestern Bell (later referred to as SBC, in 1984 the biggest of AT&T's 22 Bell Operating companies but in 1984 the smallest of the 7 newly created Regional Bell Operating Companies [RBOCs] as it only included 1 Bell Operating Company - Southwestern Bell Telephone, which later acquired PacTel in 1996, then acquired AT&T in 2005 and rebranding as 'at&t', then acquired BellSouth which included Cingular Wireless in 2006. 

7) USWest [umbrellaing Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph, Northwestern Bell and Pacific Northwest Bell], later merged with Qwest Communications in 2000, took on the Qwest name, then merged with CenturyLink then took the CenturyLink brand.

As AT&T rocked and heaved through the post divestiture 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, competitor MCI was causing sleepless nights at AT&T headquarters.  MCI was purchased by Worldcom in 1998, then Worldcom's (apparent) financial performance put increasing pressure on AT&T's leadership to achieve comparable financial performance.

The thinking going into the 1984 Divestiture was that the Bell Operating Companies were the drag on AT&T's growth.  AT&T's network was viewed as the crown jewels, along with booming technology on the hardware side with the old Western Electric, then acquired NCR.  However, into the late 1990s and early 2000's the Regional Bell Operating were merging and growing as they owned what was really the invaluable asset - a direct billing relationship with tens of millions of households.  AT&T kept reorganizing in an aim to better manage growth, dividing into about a dozen and a half business units, each evolving to having their own (private, internal) P&Ls. This approach influenced thinking to continually re-rank BUs includig the decision to unload the hardware business (which became Lucent initially before that company split into Avaya, then was acquired).

Worldcom financial pressures were commoditizing AT&T's network - the assets thought to be their crown jewels.  The Chairman at the 1984 Divestiture - Charlie Brown - had retired shortly thereafter. In 1986, COO Jim Olsen became CEO (Olsen began his career working in manholes installing telecom services).  However, in 1988 Olsen died of cancer, then was replaced by Robert Allen, then President. CEO Allen served until 1997 until missteps caused the AT&T Board to oust him and bring in outsider Michael Armstrong as CEO.

As Armstrong required AT&T business units to cut to bone, then cut into bone (as AT&T was chasing Worldcom - which at the time was unknowingly a ghost / financial fraud), one of the 

directives Armstrong imposed on all AT&T business units was to stop all innovation within business units.  Instead, working with then AT&T Labs President Dave Nagel, a newly created centralized corporate incubator was established in early 2001 with AT&T Labs called 'eAT&T'.  Any new potential solutions that had projected out-year break-even had to be directed to this new corporate incubator for consideration and approval into the eAT&T incubator organization. eAT&T would establish start-up governance leadership per approved incubator initiative, then provide then the responsibility of taking their respective incubator to break-even. Once operating in the black, the incubator would migrate to a business unit for ongoing life cycle management.

Leading my "ClickAT&T" incubator for multi-phased carrier billing of eCommerce (across AT&T's billing assets spanning   wireline billing, wireless billing, ISP billing, prepaid billing, cable billing, etc.) I successfully navagated leadership scrutiny to earn 1 of just 20 corporate incubator slots in the new eAT&T.  Mine became 1 of just 2 out of those 20 to successfully make it to market and scale, beginning with Phase 1 AT&T PrePaid WebCents thanks to breakthrough engagements to closing deals I did with 3rd party value added service providers including marquee giants WDIG (Walt Disney Internet Group) for Disney Toontown & Disney Blast games - with distribution deals at Wal-Mart and other major retailers; Sony for Sony's MMP Everquest; RealNetworks' Rhapsody Music; as well as Vindigo's location service; Atom Shockwave's various online games, along with creative multi-media ecosystem solsutions with Graceland, BMG Music and others. Unfortunately, by late 2001 (about 10 months after the eAT&T incubator organization was started) AT&T President Dave Nagel jumped to Apple and the replacement AT&T Labs President Hossein Eslambolchi [along with Armstrong], withing 2 months killed eAT&T (coinciding with me following the initiative to AT&T Consumer where it launched and scaled per above).  

   (Example of Pre AT&T Labs collateral (one of several) from successful ClickAT&T Beta in AT&T Business' vCommerce business unit ... before ClickAT&T's resurrection in AT&T Labs' eAT&T Incubator, then Phase 1 launch in AT&T Consumer's PrePaid business unit.)

Decision by AT&T's leadership to chase the (not known at the time) fraudulent Worldcom, weakened AT&T so significantly that by 2005, AT&T was acquired by SBC - the smallest of the 7 RBOCs that AT&T dumped/divested 21 years earlier.    

A challenge in big corporates is that often decision makers have a bias that expects home runs fast. Granted, their bias is influenced by investor and market pressures that want optimal returns as fast as possible.  That said, I recall yeas ago when there was more balance in the investment community in terms of a mix of short and long term ... but more recent decades have seen a pull toward primarily the shorter term, which then of course influences how leadership in measured and rewarded, which of course puts increased pressure on innovation that takes time.  Fast forward about a decade and carrier billing of eCommerce is one of the few boom industries of the Great Recession Era with impressive firms including ArpuPlus, Boku, Bango, Centili, Danal Inc./BillToMobile, Dimoco, Fortumo, ipayy-Verse, Mobile Embrace, NeoMobile, SLA Mobile and others - racing to make a ubiquitous global footprint of ramping carrier billing of eCommerce, now forecast to bring $12B in revenues to telecom. One of many challenges of the innovator's dilemma.

Again, kudos and all the best to Telkom Indonesia's DDB Accelerator.  May they become a beacon of success that influences others to replicate their approach.

Innovator's Dilemma - Lyft's John Zimmer provides a perfect innovation example

Zimmer's thinking - reflected in this linked interview - demonstrates a perfect example of paying attention to a variety of evolving market-environmental factors that translate into opportunity for the visionary.  http://news.yahoo.com/katie-couric-lyft-president-john-zimmer-153811986.html

One can imagine the challenges for planning legal safeguards for lyft's drivers and passengers - from 'typical' traffic accidents to potential mischief or worse by passengers and/or drivers (real or fraudulent allegations).  Every potential business has challenges that require extensive diligence to anticipate and plan solution-models with safeguards and protections for customers, employees and investors.