An outline framework for innovation.
When you’re wanting to start a business or develop an idea, there are a few stages that the idea needs to pass through.
Using a combination of design thinking, lean startup methodology and common innovation practices, the below provides an outline framework for innovation, in the form of ‘goals’ that your idea wants to achieve:
Goal 1: explore an idea ‘space’ (the area you’re interested in)
Goal 2: validate a need (a problem your customers have)
Goal 3: validate a solution (ensure your solution addresses the problem your customers are facing)
Goal 4: validate your business model and route to market (ensure people will pay for your product/service and that you will be able to reach them via appropriate marketing and distribution channels)
4 goals to innovation
Goal 1: explore an idea space
An effective way to make sure that you are developing a concept that people want is to start with your customers.
Go out and talk to people, understand their lives, the things they want to achieve and the problems that they face in trying to achieve these goals (big or small).
Get up close and personal, hunt for problems to solve and then start brainstorming solutions to these problems.
Goal 2: validate a need (problem)
You’ve come up with an idea (or an idea space you are exploring) and now you need to make sure, before investing too much money or time, that it is something that people want.
Focus on your customer (and/or user), running experiments and interviews to understand how strong the need is.
Be careful when asking questions that you’re not leading people, check out The Mom Test to avoid this pitfall.
At this point, you’ll also want to check that the problem affects enough people / the market is large enough to be worth pursuing. To do this you can look at market sizing - we’ve included this in a blog post here.
Goal 3: validate a solution (problem-solution fit)
So you’ve spent time with customers, found a problem and validated that problem. Now it’s time to generate and validate a solution.
First things first, come up with a solution / idea! Be creative, allow yourself to think freely and then narrow down to an idea you think is worth pursuing.
At this point you want to validate it and we’re looking at two key areas:
One: a quick look at your business model and sense checking for high-risk areas
Two: the user's experience of your solution and if it solves their problem
Area one, business model:
To start off with, grab some post-its and complete a business model canvas (the idea with the canvas is that you can create various alternative versions and change/develop it as your idea grows).
As you complete the canvas and look at what you have filled in, you will essentially have a list of assumptions (statements that are not yet proven to be true). The assumptions will broadly fall under three categories: desirability (do customers want it), feasibility (can you actually create it), and viability (will it be commercially worth while).
Look at all the assumptions that your idea contains and identify those that are the riskiest (those assumptions that if proven wrong will kill the idea). The next step is to design quick and cheap experiments to test these assumptions.
One of the riskiest assumptions at this stage is likely to be “users of the product/service will want it" or "the product fits users needs” and this leads us nicely on to area two…
Area two, user experience:
As one of the primary risks at this stage will be around the desirability of the solution, it is important to design experiments to test various concepts with them.
These experiments could vary from interviews, paper prototypes, wireframes, using existing software to replicate your solution, generating pre-sales off the back of fake marketing, the list goes on…
The point here is that you will showcase and test solutions with customers to find out what is and isn't working for them.
Goal 4: validate your business model & route to market (product-market fit)
Once you have found a solution that is desired by customers and suits their needs, get cracking testing the other business assumptions!
The tests that you now need to run will include; ensuring that you can feasibly create the product/service (do you have the skills? Can you partner with people who do?), that you have a possible route to market and the right price point that works for your business model and customers.
During all four goal stages, the more interactions you have with your users and customers the better - you don't have to do everything they ask for, but let your thinking and development be guided and grounded in a true need or opportunity that exists within the market.
Expect to be running multiple interviews, experiments, and pilots as you iterate your idea on the way to your breakthrough!
