Introducing Pitchdeck – the game of mass disruption
Want to “do” innovation? Here's a way of bringing fun into the process. At the end of last year we released Pitchdeck – a card game that brings play into business strategy – to a few friends, clients and press.
Pitchdeck helps people generate ideas for disruptive business ventures, along the lines of “It's like the Uber of _____”. It includes two sets of cards: one featuring the names of 50 existing startups, and another featuring 200 random subjects (flights, groceries, refunds, ideas, shopping, magazines, magic, pizzas, UFOs, flowers, otters, barcodes and karaoke, for example). One player chooses to be Investor while others play as Entrepreneurs, and the game proceeds with the Investor tendering a startup, and the entrepreneurs pitching the best idea from the subjects they have in their hands. The most exciting, innovative or entertaining match wins the round.
With 10,000 possible permutations, the results could be almost any kind of venture idea – come up with an Netjet for diamonds, a Zocdoc for hospitals, a Birchbox for wine, a Slideshare for X-rays, a Grindr for accountants, a Foursquare for laundry, a Chatroulette for VIPs, a Kickstarter for education, or something else entirely.
Pitchdeck was conceived in our New York Office and has been used in client sessions to inspire creative thinking. Now we're releasing the game for the first time to share its benefits with a wider audience. We plan to release more editions this year, with industry-specific cards including subjects relating to healthcare, retail, travel, luxury, education and finance and so on.
While we're on the topic of innovation, last year we created an entirely new business, the kind that someone might come up with when playing Pitchdeck - in simple terms, our Composed streaming service for Universal Music Group is like a Spotify for classical music. If you're interested in that, read more about it here. Meanwhile, Made By Many designer Alex Harding writes about designing for an older audience here.
If you're interested in Pitchdeck register your interest here.
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