“Test the solution, then test it again. Listen and learn from each test, and accept that the first idea may not have been the right one.”
Before Innovation as someone else's job.
You've seen this pattern. In a big company, innovation quietly becomes someone else's job: a central team or a hired consultant owns the future, and everyone else executes the present. The employees with the deepest knowledge of the business never get near a customer to test an idea. Ideas live and die in slide reviews. Butagaz had the mature business and the talent. What it lacked was a way to put its own people in front of customers and let them build.
The Intrapreneur Program Out of the building, in front of customers.
We took 11 people who had never run a customer interview and started there. The first weeks alternated theory and field work: how to run a discovery interview, how to use the Lean Canvas, how to define a value proposition. Then out the door. They cold-called qualified leads, stopped shoppers in DIY stores, talked to residents at Le Square. The signal came from real customers in the field.
Two teams chased two strategic questions for Butagaz. They built web pages in record time, ran Google and Facebook campaigns, put rough offers in front of real people, and watched most of their assumptions break. Ideas got killed. Teams pivoted. The coaches pushed them out of their comfort zone every time the evidence said the first idea was wrong.
“The coaches pushed us out of our comfort zone, and re-motivated us every time we had to pivot.”
Twelve weeks in, the teams pitched to the general manager and the executive committee, whose job was to fund the most promising projects. The two strategic questions had spun off a pile of ideas. Three came out as funded projects. Customer evidence had killed more than a dozen others along the way.
After The next growth came from its own people.
Before
Innovation owned by a central few.
Employees never tested an idea with a customer.
Growth locked to a mature model.
After
11 employees ran projects like founders.
They tested ideas with real customers.
3 new growth projects funded by the board.
Now the reflex starts from the customer. Employees pulled off their day jobs came back able to run a discovery interview, kill a weak idea, and pivot on evidence. They carried the method into their own teams. Talk to a customer before scoping the build.
Every employee who started the program finished it, all 11. The two strategic questions produced three funded projects, with more than a dozen ideas killed along the way, each one because customers said no. Several participants were then tapped to spread the method across their own teams.
“This program is an effective way to instil an entrepreneurial and innovation mindset across the company, centered on the customer's need.”
Legacy. The first edition proved Butagaz could find new growth through its own people. The intrapreneurs became internal ambassadors for customer-first innovation, and the program ran again the next year. Putting employees in front of customers became a repeatable engine for growth.
A Butagaz new business told from the inside: How Butagaz Enters a New Market, with David Monserand, episode 6 of the podcast (in French). On running new ventures from inside a company: The intrapreneur, a guide on Franck's blog.