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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