Entrepreneurs have vision. They "know" where their new industry is going and how it's going to get there. They can see five or ten years into the future. But, for most entrepreneurs, seeing six months or a year into the future is much more difficult.

How quickly will my industry develop? What steps will it go through? How might the "nature" of my customer change through those steps? Do I raise investment money or grow organically? How do I make specific product and marketing decisions? These are all questions that entrepreneurs wrestle with. But these questions are temporal: The answers vary based on where in time and process a company is in the evolution of its underlying industry. Not knowing where you are leads to bad and, sometimes disastrous decision-making. The Double Helix helps entrepreneurs answer these questions and avoid pitfalls.

The Double Helix is a mapping tool. Its unique "macro" view provides you with a look at the life of your product in the context of the life stage of an entire industry. This "in context" view is critical, because without it you are making decisions without information that has a huge influence on your product's and company's survival.

The Double Helix is a powerful tool based on a simple premise: a product without a market is just a technology and a market without a product is nothing more than a demographic. It takes into consideration the fact that products and markets are highly linked. They develop together in a predictable and understandable process and, go through phases with very different business demands. Using the Double Helix, you can better determine which phase your product is in and invest your resources in a way that will produce results.

According to the Double Helix, the process begins with the introduction of a new, fundamental technology that spawns a period of creative "exploration and experimentation" and ends with an aging technology no longer capable of satisfying market demand, paving the way for one or more fundamental technology advances.

The Double Helix charts the evolution of both a new technology and its buyers as the technology based product(s) move beyond experimentation and become more focused, complete and value oriented. It tracks the early idiosyncratic buyers as they consolidate into identifiable and approachable markets and it follows the industry past the "chasm" of majority adoption and to the point where another new technology is introduced -- with the prospect of energizing yet another new cycle.

Knowing where you are in the process helps you prepare for and survive the paroxysms of change. It helps you deal with the attendant demands for different market testing, product development, organizational and investment approaches. This new orientation, provided by the Double Helix' perspective, empowers startup ventures to weather long periods of inertia and then take advantage of new dynamic forces as markets begin to move.