[#innovation - 11] Ideas at the coffee machine.

How many times has it happened that a friend of yours said something like "I’ve got an idea (a good one!) and want to tell you about it"?

This often happens in front of a coffee, doesn’t it?

Any single new idea might have the potential to become valuable business.

But, when is an idea a concretely and potentially good one?

Is your individual experience enough to allow you understand when it’s worth spending some more energy on that?

Do you feel confident about always taking decisions with your gut?

Finding value in ideas needs some minimal structure, otherwise you might spend a lot of time and energy in understanding whether it’s worth investing your attention on that opportunity or not.

The structure needs to be lightweight, not to be restrictive: you have to leave the proponent enough room to express their vision and proposal.

It should be organized and include four topics:

[1] PAIN: this is a potential demand to be satisfied. Here you explain the needs of a potential customer base and define the nature of the demand, identifying the target the proposal is related to.

[2] SOLUTION: If there’s only a pain and not a proposal for its solution, than it’s not an idea but just a complaint. Here is the core of the idea, the most innovative contribution. What needs to be clear here is that the proposal will have to describe how the PAIN will be solved from the final customer’s viewpoint.

[3] BUSINESS IDEA (MODEL): actually, anticipating the way even a really potential idea will generate value (e.g. money) can be very difficult. This point is about awareness on the complexity from a business viewpoint. That means anticipating possible risks, knowing your competitors (having them is good news!), needs for partnerships, activities to be performed, customer relationships, distribution channels, customer segments, cost structure, revenue streams.

[4] COMPETENCE: point [4] is stricly related to [3]. This is because both concern feasibility, that is how complexity needs to be dominated to concretely transform the idea into business. Point [4] focuses more on the needed competence. In Silicon Valley, at this point, it is typical during a pitch that the speaker spends some spot talking about the team. That’s coherent with the whole story which is about: dear potential investor, in ten of minutes I expect you to believe I’ve identified a potential and concrete market demand [PAIN] and, you know what? I’ve also found a way to satisfy that demand [SOLUTION] and, want to know more? Well, I’m aware this is gonna be complex to be realized but I know what will be necessary to do it, I have a plan to create value [BUSINESS]. And, finally, I CAN DO THAT, because my team is well balanced and we do have all the competence necessary to transform the dream into reality [COMPETENCE].

You can consider this as a sort of check list:

just make sure you’ve some clue of these four points before you (can) feel satisfied about any “coffee machine” proposal.