How to Start and Grow your Startup 2. Ideas -Idea Generation -Idea shaping & evaluation

1. Ideas
Idea Generation
Idea shaping & evaluation

2. Idea Generation
• How to have ideas
• Where to find opportunities
• Idea generation techniques

3. Idea Generation
• How to have ideas
– How the process works
• Being in a learning environment
• Frame ideas as questions
• Let mind wander
• Apply known functions with new arguments
– Some starting points
• Things that people use but are broken
• Take a luxury and make it a commodity
• Make something easier/easier to use
• Look at what a big company should be doing and do it yourself
• Build stuff for yourself that doesn’t exist
Source: Paul Graham

4. Idea Generation
• Where to find opportunities
– Change is the source of innovation
– Look for opportunities
• The unexpected—the unexpected success, the unexpected failure,
the unexpected outside event;
• The incongruity—between reality as it actually is and reality as it is
assumed to be or as it “ought to be”;
• Innovation based on process need;
• Changes in industry structure or market structure that catches
everyone unaware.
• Demographics (population changes);
• Changes in perception, mood, and meaning;
• New knowledge, both scientific and nonscientific.
Source: Peter Drucker

5. Idea Generation
• Idea generation techniques
– Old approach to a new problem
• Translation – Where else would it work?
• Symmetry – Would flipping it work?
– New approach to an old problem
• No constraints – What would Croesus do?
• Internalization – Why aren’t you feeling my pain?
– Make lists, then make choices
• Generate lots of ideas to get the obvious ones out of the way
• Look for the best ones in the “third third”
Source: Barry Nalebuff & Ian Ayres and Tim Hurson

6. Idea Generation
• Learn more
– Paul Graham, “Ideas for Startups”
– Peter Drucker, “Innovation and Entrepreneurship”
– Gary Dushnitsky, “Idea Generation Workshop”
– Barry Nalebuff & Ian Ayres, “Why Not? How to Use Everyday
Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big And Small”
– Tim Hurson, “Think Better: An Innovator’s Guide to Productive
Thinking”

7. Idea shaping & evaluation
• Identify what customers are already trying to do
• Look for disruptive potential
• Match your strategy to the type of market
• The right Business Model
• Putting it all together

8. Idea shaping & evaluation
• Identify what customers are already trying to do
– Jobs to be done
– Objectives
– Barriers
– Solutions
Source: Innosight

9. Idea shaping & evaluation
• Look for disruptive potential
– Disruptive innovation
Performance
Disruptive
technologies
Time
Source: The Innovator’s Solution

10. Idea shaping & evaluation
• Look for disruptive potential
– Disruptive innovations
Digital photography Chemical photography
Minicomputers Mainframes
Personal computers Minicomputers
Telephone Telegraph
VOIP Telephone
Online software On-premise software
Solid State drives Hard disk drive
Online education Universities
– Target the low-end of market & non-consumption
Source: The Innovator’s Solution, Wikipedia

11. Idea shaping & evaluation
• Match your strategy to the type of market
– Types of markets
• Existing markets
• Re-segmented markets
• New markets
– Implications for:
• Market
• Sales
• Finance
Source: Steve Blank

12. Idea shaping & evaluation
• The right Business Model
– Business model innovation
• Being distinctive in the customer value proposition, the profit
model, key resources, or key processes
– Business models
Software as a Service Freemium Installed applications Advertising
Audience Aggregation Marketplace Lead generation Virtual goods
Crowdsourcing Content production Enterprise 2.0 Professional Open Source
– Value innovation
• Innovating on one dimension while keeping the others at a good
enough level
Source: Clayton Christensen, David Cohen, and Chan
Kim & Renee Mauborgne

13. Idea shaping & evaluation
• Putting it all together
– Product: Features & benefits, IP, dependencies, TCO
– Customer & Problem: Types of customers, problem, day in
the life of the customer, ROI, MVP
– Distribution & Pricing: Based on complexity of the product
– Demand creation: Activities to drive demand into channel
– Market type: Existing, resegmented, or new market
– Competition: Attributes (existing & resegmented markets),
surrounding markets (new markets)
Source: Steve Blank

14. Idea shaping & evaluation
• Learn more
– Clayton Christensen, “The Innovator’s Solution”
– Scott Anthony, “The Innovator’s Guide to Growth”
– Innosight, “JOBS Methodology”
– Innosight, “Disruptive Innovation Primer”
– Steve Blank, “The Four Steps to the Epiphany”
– Steve Blank, “The Lean Startup Operating Manual”

15. Idea shaping & evaluation
• Learn more
– Steve Blank, “The Customer Development Methodology”
– David Cohen, “Internet Business Models of the TechStars”
– Wikipedia, “Business Models”
– Clayton Christensen, “Reinventing Your Business Model”
– Innosight, “Business Model Innovation”
– Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne, “Value Innovation: The Strategic Logic
of High Growth”