Key takeaways
- "Kill-first" makes ventures stronger. Stress-test ideas early and often so only the ones that survive real pressure move forward.
- Politics rise as ventures scale. Define kill criteria upfront to avoid sunk-cost bias and late-stage protectionism.
- Protect early ventures with independence. Use Skunk Works setups to delay politics, speed decisions, and validate on evidence.
- Train teams to read kill signals. Opportunity size, pivot quality, and customer engagement reveal if a venture is worth continuing.
- Balance data with judgment. Use metrics to guide—not dictate—kill calls, and rely on entrepreneurial intuition to interpret signals.
Making a kill call is never easy, and it’s even tougher in the pharma industry, where high risk aversion and long development cycles raise the stakes.
Few understand this better than Iryna Smorodinova, Director of Digital Innovation at Novartis and Bundl Venture Club member. With over a decade of experience in pharma and healthcare innovation, she earned the nickname “Kill Queen” for her no-nonsense approach to stress-testing ventures.
Her philosophy is simple: only the ventures that can withstand strict scrutiny deserve to move forward. The result? The ones that do survive are stronger and far more likely to create lasting value.
In this article, Iryna shares her top seven lessons to help corporate innovators make successful kill calls, avoid the traps of corporate politics and turn shutdowns into a strategic capability.
Lesson 1. Adopt a “kill-first” mindset
Succeeding in corporate venturing often requires a counterintuitive mindset: actively trying to kill your ventures before they kill your budget. Smorodinova embraced this philosophy so fully during her time co-leading an innovation lab at Boehringer Ingelheim that colleagues dubbed her “the Kill Queen.”
“We need to do everything possible to kill a venture. If it survives, then it’s something that truly deserves to be considered.”
Encouraging teams to think critically about why their venture should be shut down enables them to validate faster, spot flaws earlier, and nurture the ideas that truly have staying power.
Lesson 2. Master the corporate innovation paradox
The deeper a venture moves into the corporate value chain, the harder it becomes to kill. As Smorodinova explains:
“In pharma, research teams accept failure as part of the job. But once ventures move into clinical operations or commercial teams, tolerance for failure tends to plummet.”
This creates a paradox: by the time ventures gain bigger budgets, visibility, and political champions, shutting them down feels too costly, even when the data suggests otherwise. If success is measured only by wins, executives see kill calls as career risks, not smart strategy.
The strongest innovation cultures counter this by rewarding timely exits as much as visible wins.
Lesson 3. Use Skunk Works to protect early ventures
One of the fastest ways to kill promising ideas is to expose them to business unit politics too soon. As Smorodinova explains:
“If you connect business units too early, there are too many people on the board who aren’t entrepreneurial. They’re not willing to break things and validate quickly.”
Smorodinova argues that early-stage ventures need independence, including their own funding pool, governance, and the freedom to move fast without corporate bottlenecks. Some of the advantages include:
- Politics delayed: Business units join only once real traction is proven.
- Speed: Decisions take weeks instead of months.
- Culture: Teams act like entrepreneurs, free from corporate processes.
Lesson 4. Make early kill tests a strategic capability
In the early stages, the real test of a venture is its resilience under scrutiny. Can it hold up when exposed to market realities? According to Smorodinova, kill calls vary in quality:
- Smart kills combine evidence with entrepreneurial judgment.
- Bad kills weaponise data for politics (“auditing” ventures to justify shutting them down).
The goal is to build a culture where scrutiny strengthens ventures instead of undermining them. Stage gates should act as stress tests, surfacing weaknesses early and helping teams bulletproof their ideas before scaling.
Lesson 5. Learn to spot kill signals early
The best corporate innovators don’t wait for ventures to fail; they learn to recognise red flags early and act fast. Smorodinova points to three of the most critical warning signs:
1. Opportunity size
If the opportunity doesn’t look extraordinary up front, it won’t get better with time. As explained by Smorodinova:
“If you’re not seeing it as mind-blowingly interesting at the start, don’t even bother”.
2. The pivot test
Not all pivots signal progress. Healthy pivots transform a venture’s trajectory, turning weak ideas into strong opportunities. Unhealthy pivots are cosmetic, minor tweaks that prolong survival without solving the real problem.
3. Weak customer signals
If teams struggle to collect data or validate demand, it’s often because the opportunity isn’t real. As Smorodinova notes:
“If colleagues inside the company won’t engage with the research, you can’t expect external customers to”.
Lesson 6. Don’t compromise on strategic fit
In pharma and other conservative industries, ventures that strengthen the internal value chain or broader growth goals tend to succeed more often than those chasing external markets.
These ventures built on alternative business models usually run into the same walls:
- Low tolerance for deviation: Adjacencies get cut first in times of pressure.
- Limited expertise: Internal teams lack expertise to win in unfamiliar markets.
- Weak sponsorship: Ventures only get backing if they align with corporate goals.
The lesson is simple: if your venture doesn’t reinforce the broader corporate growth strategy, it will be the first on the chopping block.
Lesson 7. Don’t fall into the data trap in later-stage kill calls
Stage gates and scorecards provide structure, but over-reliance on them can suffocate innovation. Smorodinova warns that teams often become “victims of their own metrics,” spending more energy justifying their existence with data than creating real progress.
Good kill calls strike a balance:
- Balance the data: Use data to guide decisions, not dictate them.
- Trust experience: Rely on entrepreneurial judgment to interpret signals.
- Seek fresh eyes: Bring in external experts for unbiased perspectives.
As Smorodinova puts it, if all the data says “kill” but entrepreneurial judgment says “continue” (or vice versa), it’s worth listening to that instinct.
Final thoughts
Smorodinova’s approach demonstrates the value of subjecting ventures to real pressure early. By stress-testing ideas with the intention of killing them, she ensures that only the strongest survive. The benefit of this discipline is clear: fewer wasted resources, more credible wins, and a stronger foundation for future innovation.
A big thanks to Iryna Smorodinova for sharing her insights with us and the BVC community. For more Bundl Venture Club insights, be sure to sign up for our next roundtable. Hope to see you there!
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