Is your “Idea” strong enough? (Case study included)
Ok, you have an idea. So, what next? How do you build on it? And supposing you started discussing & brainstorming how do you know you have something that'd work & when do you know where to stop?
Where it all starts!
Look around you today, you are filled with products that you use over a regular cadence to get things done and some of them are used as much as every minute and every second as well.
Think about it!
Is it merely a coincidence that you can’t or rather don’t want to imagine how your life was before the advent of some products that you regularly use today?
Certainly not!
The harsh truth is, it might have taken someone (actually a whole bunch of guys) weeks & months of research, ideation, brainstorming, interviewing to firstly get the product to a state of semblance and then to the shape you are seeing it in now.
Also, the reality is, it takes about 10 seconds for your brain to think about something (perhaps even quicker may be less than 5 seconds – Fwiw, I don’t want to disappoint the guys with high IQs here). And, by the time you spend 2 full minutes over it you perhaps have what you might want to call a well-shaped idea.
But, thankfully for the whole lot of them building it and the other millions of people using it, it doesn’t take 2 days to build the product. If anything, that could be termed a very strenuous meticulous stepwise & methodical process that tries to factor in the understanding of the real world, the pain points plaguing a community of people who would supposedly be the future users of it.
Imperative 01. – The Evolution
Some very naturally valid questions at this juncture ought to be: -
If generating ideas is so damn easy then why does it take a minimum period of 90 days to build / deliver / release it?
Is generating ideas rather really an easy part of the whole exercise?
During the whole ideation process, sadly all that it produces and FWIW it still remains to be – “an idea” unless it is turned into something tangible, which is exactly what the build cycle does, transforming the idea into a product. When whether it ought to take 90 days or lesser to build a product from scratch is a debate for another day, there are multiple aspects to cover right from front-end - UI, back-end – database design, software architecture, UX, coding, testing and finally integration bringing it to a state of acceptability culminating into release. But, given that the past stands testimony to the fact that all these steps put together have so easily taken over an year in some places, 90 days still looks way much better isn’t it?
Does the product development process really hog the whole 90-day period?
The answer obviously is No, not really.
Before it is decided that we are good to go ahead with the build cycle there is a whole universe of things that the idea ought to be subjected to in phases and perhaps over what are incremental iterations to allow people involved to primarily understand a thing or two about what problems they are solving and for whom. Especially in a product orgs. these things are always top of the line because without the understanding of the target market & a given user group that has to be addressed, it is really impossible to identify a pain point let alone trying to best fit the solution to the problem via a product / feature release.
So, before entering the build phase there are many iterative cycles of scrutinizing, brainstorming, designing, experimenting, learning that the idea is subjected to in the process of evolving it and that could be way too crucial to condone.
Sometimes (actually most of the times in some big product orgs) ideas could take more time to evolve than it takes them to build it from start to finish once everything gets finalized.
But, what exactly does this process of “Evolving the idea” involve?
And also, how does a team know for some level of surety that an idea has evolved enough and is ready to be taken to the next stage that’s the build?
Imperative 02. – Strength of the Idea
Even as we speak today there could be many organizations in the world who don’t spend enough time over discussing, vetting, measuring the idea enough over allowing it to evolve. Usually the first idea that strikes which could be very plain, simple, primitive and anything else but well scoped with proper immersion.
But mostly in organizations practicing PLG this isn’t a choice but more of a mandatory exercise widely accepted as a culture leading to more time spent on fact finding, talking to users, surveying, discovering with an aim to build one chief understanding – “is this idea worth it & strong enough to pursue further?”.
If the answer is “yes” it goes ahead to further phases and makes it to the backlog prioritized suitably and if it isn’t, it is killed right there, unscrupulously as that’s the right thing to do.
When there could be many methodologies, plotting those necessary features over 4x4 matrices to test the strength of an idea measuring it over a host of necessary & essential parameters like desirability, price, perceived benefits, perceived value, overall product offering, market coverage, estimations et. al., one thing that has worked really well for me & my teams in the recent past is the Business Model Canvas by Alex Osterwalder.
Let’s see if we can understand the same thing better over a very simple & common case study such that everyone (even those not in product) could grasp it all with ease - a “Terrace Garden”!
Case Study – “Org that builds & maintains Terrace Gardens catering to both B2C & B2B”
CS-01 - IDEA & some initial steps
– “A user has an empty terrace & it more often than not classifies as wasted, unused & unproductive space”
Could it be turned into something productive?
(Yes, but there are literally innumerous possibilities here)
Could we set up a wide range of solar cells enough to power the entire house?
(Yes, but even after doing that to a 2400 sqft house there is ample space left out)
Could we establish a windmill to generate & store energy?
(Possible but not probable as it is niche requiring proper placement, height et. al. and given the cost factor it certainly isn’t a mass market for sure)
Could we turn it into a terrace garden?
(Maybe we could, but to what end? Is there a purpose here?)
How can the space be used effectively while still making it viable, feasible & desirable for a whole lot of people representing a large section of the market?
NOTE 1: When there is a faint correlation over who the market would comprise of, there is still no clarity over what their exact pain point is. That is the reason we still find ourselves at tons of different possibilities here looking confused over which route to progress with.
NOTE 2: Also, one of the biggest negatives here could be the approach we have taken in starting it all off with the solution / opportunity without really being focused / centered around the problem.
CS-02 - Identifying problems / pain areas
The most difficult part about having terrace garden is “not in establishing it” but “maintaining it periodically” (proper manure, organic fertilizers, watering it twice a day etc.)
With climate change / rising temperatures across the globe, empty terraces make it all the more humid and could worsen living conditions making it non-sustainable in the long run
It is nearly impossible to have access to green patches / parks for everyone (but people could have empty spaces in abundance where they live)
It could be very difficult to have access to fresh, organically grown, unadulterated veggies & fruits esp. in man-made urban jungles built of brick, mortar, concrete
CS-03 - The Business Case Canvas
Now this could be the ideal point to bring in the business case canvas and plug all the data in.
And, you should have something that looks like this once you have all sections filled.
NOTE: I’d advise you spend some time over going through all the sections of this image here “in detail” particularly in this order → PINK → YELLOW → GREEN → BLUE.
The canvas could help figure out tons of information as you go over spending time testing the strength of the idea over each of those individual parameters that make sense over supporting the value proposition via accentuating the customer segments, delivery channels, revenue streams & costs you would incur & resources, partnerships you would require as an organization to build, ship, support / maintain the product.
Imperative 03. – Validating the Idea (Qual & Quant)
So, what you have now is an understanding of the market, users & problems representing your side of the story. The next step obviously has to be towards taking them to your supposed target market and thoroughly validating them.
You have the options of hitting the market with surveys, user interviews to validate whether it is a problem they are facing, and if yes across which customer segments & also how big the problem is. And, by way of your questioning you could certainly determine whether it is “the problem to solve for” & whether it makes sense to go ahead with building the MVP (Minimum Viable Product).