THE COOLNOMICS® PRACTICE
Will this
idea work?
An original economic theory
of cool and the economy,
applied as a commercial strategy
practice for developing, scaling
and valuing ideas.
25
YEARS IN
MARKET
$50M
NEW COMMERCIAL
VALUE IDENTIFIED
250+
CASES
STUDIED
Coolnomics® began as an economic theory of the relationship between cool and the economy. Then it became a philosophical body of work. Now it is a commercial strategy practice for developing, scaling and valuing ideas.
A practice for running a business – the whole business, held in view at once.
The cool and the nomics.
The one room.
Does it resonate – and how will it make money?
An MBA, done properly, teaches you to stop thinking like a specialist. To look at marketing, operations, finance, product and brand simultaneously – and know which one to reach into to solve the problem in front of you. Coolnomics is built on that discipline, and adds the half the MBA leaves out: the cool.
The founding question has two halves. In most businesses they live in different rooms: one team answers whether the idea resonates, another answers how it makes money, and the handover between them is where the idea gets diluted and stripped of the thing that made it worth building.
Coolnomics teaches you to hold both in the same room – to look at any idea with the eyes of a business strategist and a creative director, at once.
THE THESIS
The coolest version
of an idea is also
the most commercially
valuable one.
HOW IT WORKS
The Practice in Three Phases
Every Coolnomics strategy runs the same three phases, whether it's a founder's first idea or a program of work inside a large organisation.
01
Locate the Idea
Where is the idea up to? The Idea Arc places it in one of five stages: Idea, Product, Market, Scale, Legacy.
02
Score It
Read the idea through the cool and the nomics. You state what you're aiming for, the score shows where the idea actually is, and the gap between the two is the finding. The verdict is plain: Coolnomics, or not yet.
03
Write the Strategy
A five-year commercial strategy that aligns the business's goals across vision, product, brand, technology, operations, people and commercials.
The two sections below are the lenses the score is read through.
THE COOL
Does It Resonate?
Three lenses, applied to any idea at any stage:
01
Relevance
How is this idea relevant to the world right now – and what will keep it relevant over time?
02
Emotion
What does it make people feel? The richer the emotional provocation, the harder the idea is to ignore.
03
Trust
What makes this idea original and trustworthy?
Together these tell you whether an idea resonates – and exactly where its weaknesses and opportunities are.
THE NOMICS
How does it make money?
Knowing how it makes money isn't a separate question – it determines how good the idea can actually get.
01
Commercial Model
How one idea becomes a portfolio – multiple products, across markets, over time.
02
Pricing
What it's worth, and how to capture that without compromising the idea.
03
Operations & Technology
The people, technology and resourcing that make it profitable to run.
04
Brand
How the way you present the idea sells it – at the right price, to the right people.
05
Ethics
Building something that makes money and feels good to have made.
One continuous picture, held together by the same logic that proved the idea was good.
FREE INTERACTIVE TOOL
Score Your Idea
Run the Coolnomics practice on your own idea or business. Locate it, state it, then score it against the five principles.
01 LOCATE IT02 STATE IT03 SCORE IT
START SCORING →WHY NOW
Information is free.
AI has seen to that.
The scarce resource – the thing that separates a business that wins from one that doesn't – is knowing which idea is worth building, and how to build it so it makes money without losing what made it matter.
That is not a trait you either have or you don't. It is a fundamental business practice.
THE TRACK RECORD
25
Years
33M
QVB visitors
$50M
Client value
25
Clients
Worked in the realms of
UTS · Google · Disney · Tourism Australia · Ogilvy · Mercedes-Benz · LG Electronics · Toyota · Nestlé · Vicinity Centres · Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney · Ministry of Sound
The Coolnomics practice has been applied at every level of the market – with real budgets, global brands through to small operators, with real cool and real commercial outcomes.
HOW YOU USE IT
Take your idea all the way.
FOR FOUNDERS
You Have an Idea or You're Running a Business
Learn creative direction and commercial strategy in one place, and write a five-year strategy for your business. No strategies that go in a drawer: you start making changes to the business in week one.
STRATEGY SESSIONS · FELLOWS PROGRAM · ACCELERATOR · BESPOKE STRATEGY
For Founders →FOR ORGANISATIONS
One Language for Value Across Your Team
Teach your team to make ideas more compelling and to think through a commercial lens, across marketing programs, new products and tech innovation. The practice comes in at the briefing, design and delivery of a project, so your stakeholders and your end user are read in the same terms. It starts with a Business Briefing for your cross-functional leads.
BUSINESS BRIEFING
For Organisations →