Viability refers to the economic sustainability of a business model: Can the offering generate money on a lasting basis? It is one of three dimensions that IDEO defined for successful innovation, alongside Desirability (Do customers want this?) and Feasibility (Can we build this?). Many innovation projects fail not because of lacking demand or technical feasibility but because there is no economically viable model behind them.
The viability assessment encompasses questions such as: Are the unit economics positive? Is the cost structure sustainable at scale? Is there sufficient willingness to pay for the offered value? Are customer acquisition costs recoverable? An example: a delivery service can be extremely popular (Desirability) and work technically flawlessly (Feasibility), but if the delivery costs per order exceed the revenue and this does not change at scale, viability is missing.
The concept comes from the Design Thinking environment at IDEO. Viability should not be examined only at the end of an innovation project but should run from the beginning as an equal dimension alongside Desirability and Feasibility.
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