Learning from Amazon Web Services (AWS): about three months ago, our colleagues Manuel Völkl, Tim-Christian R., Julia Lackas, Constanze Ranfeld, Konstantin Beckstein, Lena R. and Kayla Kinadeter had the opportunity to dive into a 2-days workshop on #workingbackwards together with Marina Vester, Marina Burkhardt and Jan Kopp from Amazon Web Services (AWS). It was an absolute pleasure and its always worth it to get insights about other innovation approaches and the one of Amazon seems to be very hands on. This leaves us not only with great ideas, but also with some valuable take aways for our own innovation process. Today we share with you our most important findings.

Working Backwards in a nutshell
The Working Backwards approach really puts the user/ customer in the centre of all thoughts. Working Backwards is the Amazon innovation approach that is applied across all Amazon subsidies and for all kinds of new idea. It is set up to start with the problem of the user/customer and to work yourself back to a solution for that problem.

Working Backwards in operation
You put your idea/solution into words, by creating a Press release. Sounds simple, but is challenging indeed if you do it for the first time. In practice you really need to force yourself as a team to describe your idea and the important things about it, so that a interested reader from your target group would be delighted. This automatically makes you leave the surface of the idea and forces you to discuss the key elements within the team. For more details that might interest customers there is a FAQ to explain some things in more detail. For technical topics (e.g. IT setup), business related questions (e.g. about the market size) and everything that might interest the management or colleagues there is a stakeholder FAQ in which these things are explained.

What´s next then?
Send the document to some stakeholders and ask for feedback. Ideally they are from several different departments and hierarchies.

Our view on Working Backwards
The approach builds a framework that brings ideas into a tangible and understandable format very quickly. Nevertheless putting the idea into easy words in time-consuming. Don´t underestimate that.

Will we use the approach again?
Probably yes. It is an interesting option to our own innovation approach and it is very easy to ask for feedback among stakeholders.

Learnings?
Make sure that you have understood the market before the Kick-Off. Here we would invest some more time. Ideally you have already agreed on a persona to ideate about upfront and invite some participants from this exact target group to ideate with us. Furthermore it makes sense to cut off customer FAQs and stakeholder FAQs after a certain amount of questions. Otherwise you create numerous pages of text that make it difficult to handle.

#workingbackwards #innovation #aws

No, today is no International Women's Day but anyway let´s kick off the year with focusing on some of the strong women we have New Ventures on a global level! 🌎 👩 👱‍♀️

Let me introduce you to Tina Tan! Tina is based in Shanghai China. Tina is managing our Retail business in China and recently launched our Venture “Wonderwall” to the market. Tina, we are always impressed by your speed, commitment and the very strong performance of the whole team. We never heard you saying “No, we cannot manage”, you simply make things happen. You have a perfect eye for lifestyle designs and you know how to bring the products to the market. Thank you so much for your hands-on mentality and keep up the speed!

Tiffany Kongvaranont, MBA, responsible for scaling our E-commerce activities in the US, located in Leesburg, US. Tiffany basically started as a one-woman show to build our E-commerce business in the US, mainly focusing on Amazon. Tiffany you finally managed that we are able to sell products via E-commerce channels in the US with now even having a small team! With high ownership you have build an ecosystem around, meaning, partners, suppliers, products & processes. Jumping into the unknown is not something that makes you feel uncomfortable! Stay as courageous as you are!

Irina Schwentner, Business Owner euerzuhause, located in Erlangen, Germany. With Irina´s background in architecture and company building she is the perfect fit for our recently launched Venture euerzuhause. Irina, it is great to see how you took the responsibility to scale this venture and make it a success. Actually, euerzuhause is also the 1st venture that is somehow independent and operates as Your Home GmbH. We are sure you will take euerzuhause to the next level together with your great team!

New Ventures is only as good as its people! Good to have you on board! 😊

#peoplebehind #womenpower #rehaunewventures

💡 Light goes on! We are very proud & also a bit humble that our inio is shown in the FAZ! 5 lamps have been tested, inio as one of these!

https://lnkd.in/eyZhW5WV

Proud because...
💪 The article shows that light is a very important topic, especially when it directly affects work performance.
💪 We are mentioned on the same level as long standing and important brands like Dyson....
💪 We are visible! We launched inio 2 months ago and even got it into one of the most important German newspapers.

Humble because...
💡 Yes, our app still needs improvement. We are not yet where we want to be. But I can tell you that we are on a good way to bring 100% stability into the app. So we are thankful for this very objective feedback.
💡 Others are also doing a great job when it comes to human-centric lighting. All the lamps they tested have their USP somehow. Ours is certainly the combination with the individual chronotype of the user. Once determined, inio gives you the best light for your specific biorhythm. 

#rehaunewventures #light #feedback

We simply say THANK YOU! 🙏 THANK YOU to our New Ventures Family, to all the entrepreneurs, passionates, explorers & innovators who make New Ventures what it is today. Thank you for your courage, commitment & passion! THANK YOU for what you do every day! YOU are New Ventures, YOU shape our culture and make our values become reality! YOU are the most important "asset"! It is a team game!

2022 was also a year of building trusting relationships with different partners all over the globe. Bitrock, NeoSOFT, digitalXL GmbH & Co. KG, Trustventure, intive, Xentral ERP Software, VEND consulting GmbH, Sarona Partners...just to name some of you! Thank you for your trust & support! Thinking in networks is so important to drive innovation!

See how our fellow New Ventures team in China saying "Thank you" to the world! Merry Christmas to all of us! 🎄

#rehaunewventures #team #innovation #merrychristmans

New Ventures in the field! As New Ventures, we are driving innovation in the area of digital construction. 🚧 It's very important that we don't just innovate theoretically. Innovation always starts with the customer & their problems. It is essential to gain domain knowledge to understand how things work. Generating domain knowledge also means getting hands dirty directly in practice.

This time Anja Hornikel interned at a construction company that focuses mainly on small construction projects for private owners, public institutions like universities and architects. 

Anja finally...

✔ got insights into how a construction company works, from the administrative departments to the technical planning and the work of the construction workers on the construction site.

✔ had the opportunity to understand the processes & their complex interrelationships.

✔ was talking to the construction workers and was part of their daily work. This gave a very valuable insight into what is important to them.

📢 Takeaway: On the construction site, the issue of young talent is super present, they are all over 40, the foremen over 50; very little digitized and mega tightly calculated orders with very low margins.

Understanding the field you are innovating in, is so important for successful ideas or even starting businesses! 💪

#rehaunewventures #innovation #construction

Light up your #life with inio!
 
Especially for the #munich community - Our #inio team officially opened the first Pop Up Store in Munich yesterday. What a blast!
 
After the online launch of inio a few weeks ago (www.inio-light.com), the opening of the Pop Up Store is another exiting milestone to bring daylight to our customers' homes (offices)!
 
Actually, the inio one is much more than just a lamp. You can bring the natural course of the sun into your daily routine. Especially in the dark season, brightness and working hours do not exactly fit together. The inio helps to bring the natural sleep-wake rhythm in line with our daily rhythm. And by the way, it also looks fantastic.
 
Would you like to experience our inio live and get in touch with the Co-Founders team Michael Mayerhofer Patrick Wolf ☀️Steffen Müller? You can find them here: Pestalozzistraße 14, Glockenbachviertel, 80469 Munich.

Open until 17th of December 2023!