A Talk by John Mullins on ‘Getting to Plan B’
November 7, 2009

John Mullins is an Associate Professor of Management Practice and holds the David and Elaine Potter Foundation Term Chair in Entrepreneurship and Marketing at the London Business School. An award-winning teacher, John brings to his teaching and research 20 years of executive experience in high-growth retailing firms including two ventures he founded and one he took public.

Prof. Mullins spoke about his latest book “Getting to Plan B” to the gathered distinguished audience. He explained that the start up process, largely driven by poorly conceived business plans based on untested assumptions, mostly fail. But there is a better way to launch new ideas, withoutwasting time and money.

Prof. Mullins emphasized that one needs to focus on five elements that determine any business model's economic viability— its revenue, gross margin, operating, working capital and investment models. And one can significantly reduce the risk of failure by:

• Comparing with existing models to 'steal' what works, avoidwhat doesn't, and add improvements.


• Identifying “leaps of faith”: the as-yet-untested questions you are banking your business on.


• Conducting fast, inexpensive, data-driven experiments to support or refute those questions.


• Using this data to make smart strategic changes and of course correct before it's too late.