Teague Hopkins

Strategic Insights for Modern Leaders

Frameworks for innovation, leadership, and sustainable growth in complex industries. Explore curated works offering analyses and perspectives for executives and product leaders. For deeper engagement, follow me on LinkedIn.

AI & Business Transformation

Leveraging emerging technology for competitive advantage

  1. Bits, Atoms, and Neurons

    Why human neural adaptation, not technology, has become the bottleneck in AI progress

  2. How AI Democratization Reshapes Strategy

    6 parallels between YouTube’s revolution and today’s AI landscape

  3. Incorporating AI into Product Strategy

    Use ‘just enough’ AI to solve your problems

  4. Lessons for AI Adoption: What SaaS Taught Us About Enablement

    Learn from SaaS history to avoid AI adoption pitfalls

  5. The Three Stages of AI Adoption

    Why starting with tools, not autonomy, is the fastest path to AI value

  6. The Familiar Crisis
  7. Come Back Online
  8. The False Choice
  9. Rethinking Ownership: AI Training and Copyright Battles
  10. How many colored squares are on this board?

Corporate Innovation Systems

Building engines for sustainable growth in regulated markets

  1. Innovation at Scale: Proving Ground Models

    Why internal ventures outperform accelerators in complex industries

  2. Corporate Innovation is Not a Crash Diet

    Long-term focus yields long-term results

  3. Stop Celebrating Failure
  4. Questions from Innovation Experts
  5. 6 Smart Ways to Innovate Inside Your Corporate Culture (Guest Post at TLC Labs)

Leadership & Decision Science

Evidence-based approaches to high-stakes leadership

  1. Ego Risk & Cognitive Biases

    Why 70% of innovation fails – and how to counter it

  2. 5 Debunked Psychology Studies

    Lessons from replication crises in willpower and behavioral research

  3. Open Master’s – Mindful Leadership

    The self-directed education program I designed to develop my own capacity to mitigate ego risk

  4. The Transformative Power of Mindful Leadership
  5. Ego Risk: Why Innovation Fails
  6. Why Culture Matters and How You Can Change It
  7. You Can’t Build Culture
  8. Ego Risk Downs DC Startup Tixelated
  9. Culture Camp DC Recap
  10. Attracting and Hiring Talent
  11. Measuring Productivity
  12. Job Descriptions That Don’t Suck
  13. Startup Risk and the Ego

Product Excellence

Tactical frameworks for PMs and cross-functional leaders

  1. Developing Deep Product Empathy

    Moving beyond user stories to authentic need discovery

  2. Product/PMO Partnership Models

    Marty Cagan-inspired strategies for agile empowerment

  3. How to Write Good User Stories
  4. The Path to a Better Product Roadmap
  5. One Simple Trick for User Centered Design
  6. The Secrets of Product Management
  7. Interview with Elliot Susel: Tech Risk + Agile
  8. A Better Website in One Afternoon
  9. Good Enough Technology
  10. Moving to the Cloud
  11. Secure Your Web App By Focusing on Users

Lean Startup Foundations

Start with these classic frameworks

  1. How to Set your Minimum Success Criteria
  2. How to Pick a Customer Segment
  3. The Ideal Profile of an Early Adopter
  4. How to Find Customers to Interview
  5. Creative Doubt and the Money Function
  6. Lean + Agile DC: A Summary in Tweets
  7. Getting Started with Lean Startup
  8. Lean Startup Panel Discussion
  9. Lean Startup for Nonprofits
  10. Opportunity Cost
  11. The Three Biggest Risks to Your Startup
  12. Certainty in Lean Startups
  13. The Founding Trio
  14. Nonprofits Are Harder
  15. Lean is not Skeletal
  16. A Few Words of Advice for Lean Mentors
  17. Four Lessons Learned at Lean Startup Machine DC
  18. It’s Time for Nonprofits to Get Lean
  19. The Startup Primer
  20. The Biggest Mistake Entrepreneurs Make
  21. How To Test a Business Idea Without Spending a Fortune

Speaking & Media