From MVP To MTP: The Exponential Company M.O.

Being a “disruptive”?has bowed to being “exponential.”

This concept was developed by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler, and contextualizes business in the age of AI in a way that hasn’t fully been realized yet…but it’s coming.

We are moving from a product/service driven economy to an open-source, value-oriented world.?

There are six phases, “six D’s” of an exponential company - and they are almost all drawn from the concept of deconstructing and dismantling what we know.

They are:

1. Digitization - Analog information is converted to digital, enabling ease of manipulation and sharing of products/services
2. Deception -? Exponential growth might start deceptively blasé, but don't be fooled: it's a slow burn
3. Disruption - The stage of transformative tech, shaking up and replacing tradition
4. Dematerialization - Physical infrastructure are no more - products/services go virtual in digital ecosystems, increasing accessibility and efficiency
5. Demonetization - Innovation breeds substantial decrease in product/service costs, making way for new business and profitability models
6. Democratization: The final stage, where exponential tech is available to everyone, democratizing knowledge and resources

These phases yield the framework that, keeping with #6 “democratization," has now been shared with the world. I’m merely the messenger.

The Business Model For All Business Models

Now that we know what an exponential company is, here’s the map - the business model to replace (or enable) all business models - that will guide this article:

1. The MTP - Massive Transformative Purpose: The inspiring, ambitious overarching vision to believe in. It surpasses profit, aiming to positively impact the world. It includes the “moonshot” vision, and the Leader / face. This is independent of an MVP, rather; it’s the core purpose from which everything blooms.

2. Voice and Community: The community follows the voice - and the capital “L” Leader directs that voice. The concept here is to build community around the MTP, THEN build products/services. Other community members include other leaders, employees and generally people that are on board with your MTP.

3. Survival: How does the MTP survive through the community? It draws from the community interacting with the MVP. Things like products ideas, cash flow, funding, feeding of community resources and investment. The community is the sandbox, where the experimentation happens.

4. Flow: This is bidirectional and continuous back and forth between “survival” and “community” - where the experimenting happens and ideas are generated.

The Seed: The MTP

Even in the age of artificial intelligence, one entirely human facet sustains: striving to make the impossible, possible.

Artificial Intelligence itself is proof of that - we built it!? And for all of history, we’ve prevailed: eradicated diseases, found flight, made instantaneous global connection a reality.

Serendipitous or not, we have always had this drive, this Massive Transformative Purpose. Now we can wield it even more intentionally.

MTP was introduced by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler in their book “Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth, and Impact the World.” Simply, it’s what brings purpose and meaning to work - quite a viral concept these days.

Further:

• It’s more than a mission statement, but a guiding principle for people, organizations and entire industries.
• It is designed to address global problems - help millions, if not billions, of people
• It’s massive, audacious and aspirational
• It’s not bothered with profits, or what’s possible “now”
• It captures the imagination and passion of those involved, intrinsically motivating
• It is iterative and agile at its core, surpassing short-term goals and focuses on creating significant, transformative change
• It is the bedrock around which companies should align their goals, strategies and actions.

Wicked Problems

So, how do we come up with these MTPs? Good ones can be reframed into a question: What “wicked problem” do I want to solve?

I like to talk about “wicked problems,” but it often goes over people’s heads. A wicked problem is a complex, seemingly unsolvable problem. It includes chronic, persistent and often ambiguous challenges that are often sensitive, controversial and always intricate in nature.

They are examples of feats - wicked problems - that humans have yet to conquer:

• Climate change
• Gentrification
• Inequality
• World hunger
• Healthcare access

Companies don’t have to promise to solve a “wicked problem” with their MTP, but it’s a good place to draw inspiration for how to attack them.

Chicken Or The Egg..

The MTP has a “chicken or the egg” problem: it’s enabled by the community that it inspires - without community, it wouldn’t exist. As a business model, the foundation is community - but the community is attracted by itself.

That’s where the Leader comes in - and drives the MTP.

There, like-minded individuals come together, innovation is fostered, risks are taken and decisions can be made towards the shared end of the deeply ingrained MTP.

That’s community - the next element of an exponential company.

Flip The Script - Building Community First

Business ideologies “of old” start like this: “Build it (an MVP) and they (community) will come.”

But the emergence of exponential companies and “Massive Transformative Purpose” beg to differ. Instead, here’s the radical - yet gorgeously simple - alternative:

“Build a COMMUNITY, and solutions will come.”

*If you think a community is about monetization, you don't really have an MTP*?

MTP is an overarching, audacious vision designed to address massive problems and give purpose and meaning to work. With this established, the capital “L” Leader, and their voice come in to maestro.

A Metaphor…

On the map of an exponential company:

Compass = MTP

Keen directional eye and heartening voice = the Leader

Skilled survivalists = the Community

The route: designed by the Community

Let's talk #2 and #3 - Leader and Community.

Community has three elements: identity, participation, and reward.

1. Identity is ignited with your MTP
2. Participation begins with creation of valuable content and fueled through high-touch engagement and fostering of activists
3. Reward is intrinsic as well as tactile: people find alignment with their identity..but further reward comes from contributing to the solution.

Building community isn't creating a forum, inviting 1000 strangers and expecting for things to materialize. It requires painstaking attention in crafting and curating content that resonates, providing an inextricable platform for feedback and amplification, and constantly engaging.

These embers need to be fanned in person to start, to build trust with key players that buy into the vision. Once that foundation is built, a scalable online platform is fertile for farming.

Whatever the vehicle is - FB group, newsletter, or podcast, the core mandate is this: Cultivate and harvest from your community. Cross-pollinate, fertilize, and repeat.

Nurturing Your Online Community

Here’s some ideas for nurturing your community online from the beginning:

• Aggregate relevant stories and efforts across the industry and create original relevant content
• Elbow key community ambassadors to engage
• ALWAYS have prominent CTAs for feedback, ideas and questions.?
• ASK the community what they want! And follow through
• Spotlight community member circles - source content, share and make them shareable
• Invest in partnerships to amplify your community
• ALWAYS respond and stay in touch.

Building community is more than vision and purpose, but grit, communication, and determination of a Leader that, in their heart has no other choice, that can inspire others to feel that, too.

Then you’ll see what the community can do when you empower it to work towards the same Massive Transformational Purpose.

Your Community Is Your Solution

It’s no coincidence that “community” and “communication” have the same root word: “Communicare,” to my delight.

The latin word means “to impart, participate or transmit,” and it’s derived from “communis,” which means to “make common or to share.”

In the context of Massive Transformational purpose and the community that fuels it, this couldn’t be more perfect.

But understanding how to build and nurture community is just where it begins. Like having a massive transformational purpose, you must understand not just why community is important holistically to the vision, but how.

Community = Your Product.

I don’t mean in the sense that advertisers use your data - i.e. “we are the product.” I mean to flip the script on the alluded phrase “if I build it they will come,” to...

“If I build THEM, they - the products - will come.”

Think of “product” in this way by going back to root words:

“Product” shares a root word with “produce”: “Producere,” meaning “to bring forth.”

Your community can, and should be encouraged to, PRODUCE. But it’s not just that they produce for you - you produce for them. You provide an ecosystem of like-mindedness, information and inspiration, AS WELL AS the opportunity to be included in the production of positive change.

So, what should you facilitate and strive for your community to produce?

The Kinetic Sandbox

Community is where you can crowdsource. It’s a kinetic sandbox - but only if you listen and provoke. If you’re doing it right, through your community you can source:

• Feedback on your process for cementing and conveying your MTP
• Ideas for growing the community even more
• Ideas for projects, products and services that align with your MTP
• Talent and team members for future projects
• Other leaders
• Creative problem-solving for obstacles and plateaus
• Eventually, even funding

I still believe in a “lean startup” - ultimately building MVPs... but building community FIRST and having them help birth them into existence. A product doesn’t live and breathe, but a community does…and that’s where survival of your MTP, and ultimately business, is supported.

Survival: A Two-Way Street

Human parents need their children - and not just for genetic preservation. Children need their parents, but parents also“need” their children (with healthy boundaries, of course). They need feedback. Connection. Inspiration. Motivation, to “keep ‘em young.” It’s a bidirectional, flowing relationship.

Similarly, exponential companies and their Massive Transformational Purposes need their communities. Without one, the other won't survive.

Not Mutually Exclusive

Say you have your MTP defined, you’ve built a community and it's thriving. THEN you are ready to think about MVPs that serve your MTP.

I have said a bazillion times how bringing an MTP to life through community building should NOT be driven by profit. However, two things can be true at once.

You can have a grand vision for the betterment of the world at large, inspiring connection and action..AND you can make a living for yourself and others.

When your community is on board with your vision, solutions are bound to emerge. As long as you are not sacrificing genuine, altruistic value for financial gain, there will be opportunities to entertain ideas for products or services.

Genesis and Endurance

The community will be influential in the FORMATION of these MVPs, but they're the authority in their SURVIVAL. Survival depends on:

• The health of the community, not just size and engagement but morale and motivation
• The strategy of building, testing and rolling out MVPs

When it comes to leveraging your community to build an MVP, Consider these phases:

1. Creation: Should be collaborative, transparent and nimble at every step. The Leader should not be attached to their idea of what the end product should be.
2. Community Rollout: Should invite more collaboration and feedback, and all parties involved need to not just be given public credit but applause.
3. The Courtship for Resources: See your community as a rich well of talent to further iterations, and if done right, crowdfunding for cashflow and bringing solutions to life.
4. The launch: You must balance conveying the value to the MTP without interrupting “regularly-scheduled programming” you've established.

Be Careful

You also need to assess your bandwidth for multiple MVPs at once. Chances are, if you have a healthy ecosystem for ideas to flow, many people will want their hat in the ring. Understanding the need for balancing internal resources with incoming projects is vital to community health.

Making empty promises about someone’s impassioned idea is the fastest way to kill your community.

Survival of a community requires sensitivity, tact and value - and survival of an MVP requires cash, feedback and strategy.

It is an intricate equilibrium to stirke, but if successful the reward is an bottomless well for your MTP.

Roundup

The concepts of MTP and exponential companies are brilliant, but not entirely new or hard to comprehend. They just demand a mindset upgrade, a new foundation to operate from.

It’s all shook up, reorganized, simplified in some ways and fleshed out in others.

The tenets of an exponential company include Massive Transformational Purpose, Leader, Voice, Community, Experimentation and Survival.

Do you know what I don't see in there? MVP. Product. That's because they materialize naturally after the aforementioned are mastered - not the other way around.

Without a mindset shift, away from product-orientation towards community orientation….we won’t be able to handle the change that is here, or is coming.

#exponentialcompany #mtp