What three questions should every startup entrepreneur ask? Greg Hopper, who is HQ Raleigh’s first strategist-in-residence says he asks these three when introduced to an entrepreneur. Who is your product for? Why would someone buy it? And why would they buy it from you?
Hopper is the Founder and CEO of Strategic Edge Executive Resources, which trains business leaders and their teams to think more strategically and create new growth opportunities. He has been an Adjunct Professor at Duke University since 2009, where he created and teaches the graduate course “Competitive Strategy in Technology-based Industries.”
Those three questions, Hopper says, address the key points of strategic thinking for a startup. “Who is your customer, what is your value proposition, and what is your competitive advantage,” Hopper says.
Hopper has worked for large companies, mid-sized firms, and startups, starting with IBM. “My Dad worked there, so that was almost a no-brainer,” says Hopper.
But working inside a big company – even though it has unparalleled resources any entrepreneur would envy – can be frustrating, he notes. For instance, he came up with a product idea that would be worth $50 million in a year, but that wasn’t really big enough to interest IBM.
It’s widely known to be difficult to get entrepreneurial spirit into large companies, despite their efforts via skunk works and spin-outs, he says. They’re in business to defend their current turf and their drive is to hit earnings per share targets and that can lead them to “Take their eye off the ball doing buybacks and things to meet a number.”
“One of the things that led me to form Strategic Edge was my frustration with large companies,” he says.
His first company, Austin-based Internet startup Netpliance, raised over $140M in its IPO and was later acquired by 3Com. Following that success, Hopper spent 11 years as the President and CEO of Netanium Strategic Consulting, which provided marketing and innovation management strategy to executives at organizations such as IBM and Galaxy Diagnostics.
As for his new gig at HQ Raleigh, he points out that companies need strategic thinking at least three times in their life-cycle: when growth happens wildly and they need focus; when they’re in a mid-life crisis and need a new strategy; and when they first start up.
Hopper says that in addition to his business experience, he “consumes business books,” and has read 100 or more, subscribes to top business publications such as Harvard Business Review and Strategy in Businesss. He adds that teaching his graduate class at Duke University helps him internalize the lessons from those books.
In addition to advising startups on strategy at HQ Raleigh, Hopper will be overseeing the education portion of the ThinkHouse residential program for college grads that HQ Raleigh also runs. “We want to equip them with the 10 percent of an MBA they need to be successful business leaders,” Hopper says.
He says ThinkHouse wants to replicate its program in other cities and has just launched in Greensboro. “We want to create entrepreneurs who create companies and hire people.”
