This article discusses a framework for kickstarting new ideas and bringing them to market. Whether you are starting a new business venture, launching a new product line, or even transitioning to a new job, the logic described in the sections below are steeped in research and are used by the very best entrepreneurs in business.

In 2005, Dr. Saras Sarasvathy conducted a study to unlock the secrets of success buried deep within the entrepreneur's brain. Her study set out to answer two key questions: "How do entrepreneurs do what they do?" and "Is there a universal methodology they all use that 'normal' people may be able to apply in their own endeavors?"

The results of her study involved over 25 successful entrepreneurs representing firms valued between $200M and $6B, over 500 pages of data, and over 80 hours of in-depth, personal interviews. After distilling the years of experience, mistakes, and lessons learned, Dr. Sarasvathy came up with Effectuation: a logic of thinking that helps entrepreneurs successfully start new businesses.

Effectuation has 5 key principles that you can use to be innovative in the work you do. Essentially, Effectuation helps you control and predict the results of the decisions you make today while enabling you to positively impact the quality of those results right now. Let's explore.

Principle 1: Start With Your Means

Successful entrepreneurs are very aware of the resources they have available to them. They take advantage of their resources to make things happen. Resources can be money, people, ideas, talent, or even time. Entrepreneurs trying to innovate leverage these resources to create something valuable, regardless of how incomplete or imperfect it is. By doing this, entrepreneurs get valuable feedback from customers and can more quickly develop innovative solutions that matter.

Principle 2: Affordable Loss

Being a successful entrepreneur means understanding that business is not an all or nothing game. Making calculated decisions with upside is an important part of navigating the unknown. Even in the worse case scenario, entrepreneurs make decisions and strive for goals that produce an overall net positive gain.

Principle 3: Leverage Contingencies

There's no such thing as bad news to an entrepreneur. There's only good news, and opportunities to innovate. Instead of trying to avoid surprises, successful entrepreneurs take unexpected events as unique opportunities to learn something new about customers, the market, competitors, and more. The most vulnerable moments in business are often times the most crucial moments for discovery. Innovative entrepreneurs have an acute sense of discovery in times of crisis and uncertainty.

Principle 4: Form Partnerships

Entrepreneurs understand that success boils down to team and execution. By forming partnerships with people who believe in the vision, companies are more likely to succeed. Together, partners can explore more options, leverage each others resources, physically do more work, and inevitably develop a more viable product. Having passionate and invested partners early de-risks the venture and substantially improves the number of opportunities to create something new.

Principle 5: Control Your Future Today

Entrepreneurs take things day by day and make decisions that result in incremental and measurable gains. Instead of creating lengthy timelines and working towards goals that are subject to uncontrollable forces, successful entrepreneurs develop and achieve goals within their reach. They can weather worst case scenarios fearlessly and manage the unexpected so that they win in the end. At the end of the day, entrepreneurship is not about predicting the future or stumbling into a eureka moment. It's more about envisioning and building a future with bits and pieces of today.

Do you have entrepreneurial tips to share? What are your thoughts on how to break through a slump? Comment below.

P.S.
On May 13th, Startup Grind Syracuse will host Steff McGonagle of Envisage Information Systems. This will be a great opportunity to learn how this co-founder used an entrepreneurial framework to turn mistakes into opportunity. More info about these monthly events for entrepreneurs and innovative professionals can be found here: http://startupgrind.com/syracuse.