White House Business Council Startup Global Design Workshop

I had the pleasure of participating in the White House Business Council Startup Global Design Workshop today in the Indian Treaty Room at the White House.  As part of the president’s National Export Initiative (NEI), the administration is encouraging US businesses to export their products and services to global markets.  Startups are seen as particularly a big opportunity because even though they create jobs and spur innovation, only about 1% export their offerings and of that 1%, over half only export to one country.

The Startup Global Design Workshop was an innovative approach to finding solutions to how we could help more startups export their offerings.  Working with the Department of Commerce, the workshop brought together startup founders, innovators from the private sector, and public policy leaders from the government to develop 20-30 testable ideas.  Intuit was asked to facilitate the workshop given our special relationship with startups and our innovation methodology. 


We used Intuit’s Design For Delight process where we listened to startup founders as they related their experiences going global and then brainstormed several solutions ultimately narrowing to a small set targeted for lean experiments as a follow up.  Thanks to Michael Masserman and the Department of Commerce for their partnership.  Thanks to my colleague Lindsey Grossman for her key role in organizing the event and to Lindsey, Lionel Mohri, and Max Seaman for facilitating the workshop.

Listening to a startup founder.



With colleagues Max Seaman, Lionel Mohri and Lindsey Grossman.