Problems All Around

Over the last year, I’ve really looked at probably around 12 product ideas, either by myself or with co-founders. Each one has taught me something different about an industry, product development, or startup process in general. Over all, one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that ideas are cheap. Most of the good ones fail, so you better be thinking strategically. You should also do a lot of soul searching before you commit to any particular problem.

Where do the ideas come from?

Rule #1 is that problems are all around you. Things should be pissing you off on a daily basis, and when they do, you need to record them. Poorly timed traffic lights piss you off? Write it down, and elaborate. Wish you could get a dog but have no idea what you’d do with it during the day? Write it down and elaborate. Soon you’ll have a big list of problem spaces. 

The idea game

But what if you’re too impatient to let things come to you? I’ve got a little exercise you can do to jump start your creative juices. Get some creative friends, and go to a bar with a pad of paper. Order some beers - lots of beers. Then you go around in a circle and everybody throws out a word or subject that they encounter during their week - cat, tires, alarm clock, bus, bank, wallet, kidneys - whatever. And as these words are said, somebody is writing them down, and anybody at any time can yell out what they think *sucks* about that particular thing. As you complain, find out if other people agree with you about how much it sucks. Parking - Oh man, that sucks because you can never find a spot on the street. And parking in a parking lot is ridiculous!! And so on.

Don’t let the momentum slow, and make it fun. As somebody throws out what they think sucks about that idea, start coming up with solutions for how you might solve the idea. Some are going to be ludicrous, and some are going to be downright interesting. 

Do this for an hour or two at a time, you’ll notice people petering out. Do it a few times, and share the list with friends. You could even take your list of words to friends and ask them to point out 3 words they can think of a pain point for.

Ok, so what next?

Now you’ve got a list of problems, and some that have proposed solutions. But if you’re going to start a company you need to understand a *lot* about that market, so take the ones that seem to have at least one interesting solution to, and start probing with some analysis:

• How big is the market if I solve this?
• How many people are trying to solve problems here already?
• Has it been disrupted recently?
• Have there been new technological advances that could make a solution just now possible where it hasn’t been before?
• Do you have domain knowledge in that area?
• Do you know people who can talk to you about this area?
• Do you have an unfair advantage in the space?
• How much does this problem piss people off? Would a solution be a pain pill (very compelling) or a vitamin (somewhat interesting)?
• How do you feel about that problem space? Is it interesting enough that you could work on it 4 years in even if you’re down in the dumps? How passionate are you about it?

Remember…

Ideas are solutions. They’re cheap because they’re likely to fail. If you pick an idea to work on, you really better be able to articulate the problem and know how big it is. When your first idea of how to solve that problem fails, you’re going to either have to think of a new solution to the same problem (which you just spent a lot of time researching) or you’re going to have to start all over again with a new problem, learning a new industry. That’s a lot of wasted time. Changing problem sets can also lead to co-founders not agreeing on what’s an interesting problem space to be in next. Your understanding of exactly why the problem exists is the foundation that you will build your ideas on top of. Understand it first, then validate the ideas you come up with.

Having a list of problems to choose from will also help you ensure that you aren’t just choosing to work on something because it’s your only idea. You should work on something when you’re really interested in it because it’s guaranteed to be a ride and a half.

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Startup Video Inspiration →

Finally, somebody created Startup Videos, a gallery of… well I think you get the point. It’s a great place to peruse how other companies both big and small, with large and small budgets, have tackled the “why we’re cool” statement. Take notice to methods of communication, length of video, and tone of voice. But most of all, pay attention to story telling techniques.

Remember, it doesn’t have to be produced through complicated means, but it does need to feel finished. If you’re short on time and budget, consider going with a low-fi technique and finish it well with a good voiceover and background music. A great example is this one that uses pre-illustrated pages to tell a story while a hand turns the pages and narrates.

In this age when most of us have an iPhone or Android device that can take video, a list of friends, some crayons, and a computer, there’s no reason that any one of us can’t put together a decent video. For a step by step list of things to consider, OnCompare wrote a great blog entry here.

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I have no clue what this startup’s product does. But this video makes me want to try it. Love the sound effects, nicely done.

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Great video about how to network to VCs. What do they care about? What to expect from the process?

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And the bad UI of the day goes to… American Airlines!

If you glance at the bottom right corner of this form you will see what appears to be one submit button. I’m so used to the paradigm of a single submit button in the bottom right corner that I usually just click whatever’s there. But if you fail to read the text here, or look closely at what you’re about to click, you are likely to wind up pretty frustrated. Like me.

This isn’t one submit button, it’s actually two tiny buttons mashed together, and the one that is larger (constituting 80% the width of the perceived single-button), will actually clear every bit of information you just entered in the last 30 seconds. The one that would give you what you want, a list of airline schedules and fares, is the tiny red button that whispers “GO” in 11pt font.

Evidently this lumbering airline wants to place me into a continual loop that keeps me clearing the 7 potential inputs (count them, seven) used to search for a flight. Hats off to you for optimizing your site for length of visit… at the expense of user experience.

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Netflix just launched their redesigned TV series page. Before the redesign, each season of a show had it’s own unique page. Now you have a “Show” page that has subtabs for seasons. Yes, that’s right. We’ll now be telling any kid we see “When I was 2 months younger, I had to hit the back button to find a different season of the same show! You kids have it easy!” And we’ll be saying it in that fake grandpa voice.

One problem off the bat with the redesign? You can no longer see the DVD cover art from each season. The different themes from each season are helpful for identifying each one as a chapter in the meta story. Many shows also rotate characters out and in depending on who gets axed (by death or divorce maybe?) and who gets brought in brand new. I don’t see one “Show” image being able to encapsulate the intricacies of each season, which feels like a loss.

Still not a fan of how often the position indicator, as it rarely indicates correctly which show was the last one I watched. This leads me to start watching an “unwatched” show only to find out it’s the one I just watched. It’s not my fault I can’t remember titles. Can I file a bug on that?

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How to divide up equity in your startup →

This response by Joel Spolsky on how to divide up equity is really quite good. Here’s a taste:

This is such a common question here and elsewhere that I will attempt to write the world’s most canonical answer to this question. Hopefully in the future when someone on answers.onstartups asks how to split up the ownership of their new company, you can simply point to this answer.

The most important principle: Fairness, and the perception of fairness, is much more valuable than owning a large stake. Almost everything that can go wrong in a startup will go wrong, and one of the biggest things that can go wrong is huge, angry, shouting matches between the founders as to who worked harder, who owns more, whose idea was it anyway, etc. That is why I would always rather split a new company 50-50 with a friend than insist on owning 60% because “it was my idea,” or because “I was more experienced” or anything else. Why? Because if I split the company 60-40, the company is going to fail when we argue ourselves to death. And if you just say, “to heck with it, we can NEVER figure out what the correct split is, so let’s just be pals and go 50-50,” you’ll stay friends and the company will survive.

Keep reading the full response here.

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And the Bad UI Of The Day goes to… Amtrak!

At this point in the flow, you have entered your departure and destination cities, and day you wish to travel. What we see next is a list of possible trains we can take. So… how does one select the one we want? Well, Amtrak seems to tell me that the most important action here based on physical location and size of button is this one in the bottom right, so maybe I’ll click that. It is after all immediately next to the class selector which communicates price.

Oh, except that’s NOT how you move forward. That’s how you say you’re bringing a bicycle or want a private room. Fine, where the heck do I find the button that lets me proceed forward? Ah, upper right small flat-in-appearance button that says “Add To Cart”… which is by the way encapsulated inside a dark grey area.

Thank you Amtrak for making me search for the selector. I wish I could have those 12 seconds back.

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Viral Marketing Tips From Jon Steinberg

Mark Suster has a lot of great content on his blog about startups and funding. In one of his recent articles, he outlines key points about viral marketing from a video conversation he had with Jon Steinberg. Here are the first 4 points, but click through to read all 10.

1. Keep it Short – “It’s gotta be short. 30 seconds is good, 60 seconds is worse, 90 seconds is worse, people just do not want to watch long stuff.” Doh. I guess this video won’t go viral, then!  Again, Jon, “I’m not just talking about video. If you want something to be shared virally on the web it has to be short.”

2. It needs to have an interpersonal, human angle – Examples he gives, “mothers & daughters, traits in your boss you don’t like or the perfect drinks on your anniversary. Everybody will send this to people and say, ‘isn’t this just like us?’ or ‘this is totally different than us’ – you need to start the conversation” I have to admit I get this all the time. I’ll write a post on how to give feedback to employees and then I’ll get emails from people telling me they forwarded it to their whole team. When it’s personal, it gets shared a lot.

3. People want rough content that feels genuine to them / authenticity – People don’t want highly produced stuff, they want stuff that feels genuine to them. “How-to” guides work well. Behind the scenes videos do great.

4. Create something people can engage with – Examples include videos you can put your image into. Or creating quizzes or games with your content. People want to engage with content, not just consume it. The more engaging, the more it gets shared.

Love it. Look out for a video I’m working on for JustShareIt that will pay heed to these tips.

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In addition to a great blog, Mark Suster has a YouTube channel called ThisWeekInVentureCapital. This particular interview is with John Steinberg:

Keeping your finger on the pulse of what’s hot on the web these days is getting harder and harder. That’s where Jon Steinberg’s BuzzFeed comes in handy, acting as a news aggregator for all aspects of news on the web. Mark and Jon sit and discuss exactly where the world of social media and the world on news meet in today’s standards.

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NameCheck →

A website that allows you to see what user name is available on different web products. It’s analogous to a product I’m working on that helps you decide what to call your company or product based on what keywords apply, what tests well with your target demographic and what’s available as a URL.

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Mixergy - How A Non-Salesman Sold Two Startups - With Nori Yoshida

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Blog On Garth

As I start this entry, the time is 12:31 pm. I have 21 blog drafts on various topics and at various levels of completion. When I got this whole thing started a couple of months ago, I made it a goal to blog once a week. And I think we can see how that has worked out so far…

So why the trouble? I spend a lot of time reading blogs that are really well put together. They have entries that often approach the level of an essay, and thereby communicate a great deal of dedication (based on amount of time spent) and extreme level of understanding. They are consistently building a brand around themselves as experts in a very specific field. It behooves them to spend a good deal of time on this as it funnels a great deal of business to them, and is thereby a good chunk of what they need to do in order to compete and operate successfully.

It’s now 12:41 pm. I just considered saving this entry as a draft and coming back to it in the future. No, I’m going to finish.

There in lies my problem. I want to produce content at the same level, but I really just don’t have the time. Hence 21 drafts in various levels of completion, none of which I’m ready to publish because I just don’t feel that they’re ready yet. To finish them, I’d need more time but I think about blogging as an exercise that takes time away from “real work”, which is to say work that pushes my career forwards. And at this point, blogging doesn’t serve that function. For Fred Wilson, blogging about venture capital does move his career forward, it communicates to every startup founder that here’s a guy who’s smart, honest, ethical and great to deal with.

It’s now 21:49pm. I think I can finish this post right now.

But even introspective blog posts can serve a purpose other than helping ones self through a decision. All I need to do is turn it around and offer some instruction. So here goes…

Having trouble blogging? Step one is to clearly define what you want to accomplish by blogging. On one end of the spectrum, you have people who just want to have a daily record of thoughts for themselves. That can be anything ranging from a photo you found or took yourself, to links, to videos, or articles. On the other end, you have people like Fred Wilson who have large followings and write short to mid length essays on intriguing topics with great insight. These help people through their own thoughts and problems, and as a result develop a pretty big following. But, the content does fit a very specific brand, and in that way, those blogs are constrained.

If you’re having trouble starting or maintaining a blog, you might consider lowering the bar mentally, which will allow you to focus on producing content frequently. After a while, you may notice that your writing becomes more concise and delivery more polished. You’ll also learn which type of entries form the right image you want to present. Good luck.

It’s now 12:59pm. Hey, I finished in under 30 minutes.

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Start Steppin’

I heard a story once about a fellow who sat down one day and realized that his time on Earth was limited. In that moment, he felt an overwhelming sense of despair. It wasn’t that he was going to die, it was something worse: forty years had gone by and he could count only a handful of achievements. So much time had passed that he didn’t do anything valuable or memorable with.

He became determined to right his course, not towards a specific set of goals but towards one master goal: make every week count. With a rough estimate of thirty years left, he had 1,560 weeks to live the life he wanted to remember. So what to do?

He made a couple trips and returned with two large jars, and 1,560 marbles. After clearing a space on a shelf, he placed the two jars, and placed all 1,560 marbles into one of them. At the end of each week, if he had done something valuable with his time, he would place one marble in the other jar. If he hadn’t, he would throw it in the trash. Good story.

Having goals is one thing, but executing on them is a whole other ballgame. The truth is, you’ll never do something until you shut up and do it. You can have all the ideas in the world and nothing will come of them unless you figure out what step to take - and take it. You can break it down as far as you want, but as long as it’s a step towards your goal, you’re one step farther than you were.

And to finish, I leave you with this scene from the film Collateral starring Jamie Fox and Tom Cruise:

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