PunkWorks is inspired by SkunkWorks -- the crack Lockheed Martin division known for 'throwing out the rulebook' and pushing the frontiers of innovation to achieve what many others thought was impossible.
What does PunkWorks do?
We engineer perception to drive customer demand.
The projects we work on challenge commonly held assumptions and pose questions that have never been asked before. They're radically differentiated.
Radical to the degree that existing market players will laugh or ridicule them in the beginning. To be regarded as a punk, not a player.
This is where we get the "punk" in PunkWorks.
When you have a radically differentiated idea that goes against accepted norms, you get treated like a punk.
You're perceived as an outlier and defector -- unhinged.
Until the idea becomes the norm, that is.
Examples? Walt Disney and animated pictures. Marc Benioff and cloud CRM. Estée Lauder and beauty cream. Elon Musk and electric cars. Sara Blakey and shapewear.
They were all punks, until they wern't.
On every step of their journey they came up against naysayers -- what we call 'pedestrians'.
These are folks who do not assert a position in life so much as derive one from what life hands to them (as Geoffrey Moore once said).
Punks with new ideas fluster them.
“What use could this company make of an electrical toy?”
-- Western Union president, rejecting Alexander Graham Bell's telephone.
"Who the hell wants to copy a document on plain paper?"
-- Rejection letter to Chester Carlson, inventor of the XEROX machine.
“The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty, a fad.”
-- President of Michigan Savings Bank, advising Henry Ford’s lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Co.
Sound familiar? You bet.
Finding the right prospects for your idea and positioning it compellingly through each stage of the adoption curve is essential.
That's why rigorous curiosity is at our core.
Experiments aren't all made equal. It's the quality of their design that makes the difference. To question the assumed. To separate logic from perception. To include expertise but disregard precedent.
We combine the punk mindset with a lean engineering methodology and the scientific method; rapidly turning unknowns into knowns and discovering competitive advantages. This represents the "works" in PunkWorks.
And, we eat our own dog food -- in addition to external projects, we also work on internal projects using the same know-how and philosophy.
How do we "engineer perception to increase customer demand"?
The only variable that matters is perception. Alter perception favourably, you sell more stuff. Alter it negatively, you sell less stuff.
We dramatically increase perception favourably in any context. How? By tapping into the mental processes, psychological principles, and innate biases of the mind. By being creative and combining it with our GTM channel knowhow.
Who do we work with?
Companies pursuing the launch and growth of radically differentiated propositions.
How do we work?
Like a co-pilot with founders and top management. We become an external division of the company.
Who are we?
A tight-knit group of entrepreneurs and experienced GTM specialists. Most of our projects are inbound. We sometimes reach out to people working on especially interesting ideas. For punks with radically differentiated ideas, only.