This second part of my baseline post shows you the rest of the journey that preceeds entrepreneurship. Stay with me to get an idea of what is to come and how you can improve the odds of a favourable outcome. After all, it is possible to win at your idea! If you’re wondering why it says number two below, check out number one.
2. Narrow the Focus
So, you know your passion? Great! Chances are your passion is all over the place. While that is definitely better than not knowing your passion, you aren’t quite there yet. If you want something to come of your idea, it needs focus. The easiest way to do it is the way people settled matters in the ancient times before smartphones. In case you’re wondering what that might be, they talked with each other. Specifically, I’m suggesting you should have face-to-face conversations with people you admire – and fear. The more scared you are to talk to someone about your idea, the more promising the conversation. Your mom will probably not be as brutally honest as your friend’s dad who happens to be an entrepreneur. They will uncover your weak spots instantly – and those spots exist.
This is a never-ending process. Even if you already make a living off your passion (which I’m guessing you’re not), things are changing constantly and this is as much a check-up as it is a necessary step in the beginning. The ultimate goal to start with: select one idea. Make it as precise as possible. Sure, famous entrepreneurs work with twenty-seven thousand ideas at a time and I deem it likely even they started with one. You’ll be busy enough with the one, I think.
Once you think the focus is sharp enough, define the problem statement. What need do you fulfil? Posing this question alone bears considerable power. Again, talk to people about it. Something we amazingly don’t seem to get right is that the best way to confirm our problem statement is that we should ask our target group, not daddy. ‘We’ being pre-entrepreneurs without money for proper market research.
While we are talking, consider networking as a way to find possible partners or at the very least as a source of unbiased input. I recently learned first-hand how valuable it can be to reach out to people – specifically, I sent some mails to random people fulfilling certain criteria and it set things in motion that will have a major impact on my life for at least the next few years. Don’t skip this light-heartedly (I know your instinct tells you to), it makes all the difference.
While you are trying to find your focus, explore. Mainly, learn everything about your target group (the people, not the description on your laptop!). Knowing who is not in your target group is just as important as knowing who is. My philosophy lecturer recently told me that ‘intelligence’ is knowing who you are and who you are not. It is not connected to knowledge in the academic sense. What you learn at uni is feeding your intellect. Just wanted to throw that in as well.
Finally, just to confuse you, don’t forget to diverge your idea as you are trying to sharpen it. It is part of the process of narrowing it down, it will help you to clarify your own thoughts and it will ultimately leave you with a simple and clear idea of what it is you are going to do. If you already know, you won a ticket to research class!
3. Research
I want to keep this short so you don’t fall asleep – I know the tendency. You have to know your customer and you have to know your market. How will you find the information you need? Up to you.
Naturally, I have some inputs to this that I can’t withhold. Consider the industry, the customer, yourself, your future business, add all other relevant nouns here and think through them from all angles that you come up with. Then realise, that the most important angles are the ones that you will not come up with. Use the opportunity to act upon that realisation! Also, what is it that always annoyed you connected to your passion? What is it that should really be changed? This is where entrepreneurs are born.
Anyway, it is important keep the end in mind when doing research. Otherwise you accumulate all sorts of information and they lead to nothing. You should at the very least define your target market, know the market size and analyse the competitive landscape if you are contemplating entrepreneurship. Don’t forget to make use of the target market definition and survey those people! Or question them in person, if possible. Are you confused because I wrote about defining your customer before and only one step later I’m doing it again?
Not to worry. That is a nice touch I got from design thinking. When you define your target customer, it is just your idea of the customer. The more you research, talk to people and find out, the more that ideal customer will change. That is why your end step (for now – there will be iterations) is to reframe your problem statement. The new one is still not perfect but it is by far better than the one defined when narrowing the focus.
4. Sharpening
You got the drill by now. It’s about being out there and talking to people and it’s all about iterations. I talked about sharpening your focus, now it’s time to sharpen the idea. If you want to develop a talking chess board, now it’s time to figure out ways you can actually do that. You explore possible functionalities and designs.
Importantly, keep an open mind! It is common to be focused on that all too well-defined idea. You have a clear picture in mind. And you worked hard on it. Now, it’s time to let it go. Lateral processes don’t work that way. And, I’m afraid, developing your idea is no linear process.
This is probably (=assumption) where most people fail (not research because they simply skip that step). It’s where fear holds you back, where it gets uncomfortable because you make yourself vulnerable to failure. Before, nothing could really happen to you. Now, things are getting real. That’s another reason why it’s so important to be out there. It’s not just about talking to people, it’s about receiving feedback as well. Others keep you going and hold you accountable when you don’t. At this time you should be showing the whole world pictures of what you’re doing. While that raises awareness it does just that as well, it makes you accountable. And at one point or another you will need that. Having co-initiators is another great way of doing this.
Again, this is not a linear process and the sharpening starts with diverging your idea. Creative techniques help you create a chaos in your office and refocussing all your post-it notes. That is, you ideate and then synthesize. In the end, hopefully you know your unique selling proposition.
5. Creating the Solution
From that most confusing process, you create your solution to the reframed problem statement you refined earlier. This is where you visualize your thing and start telling your story. Yes, of course you’ve been telling your story all along. The difference is that now it is the story of your venture, no longer the story of how you would like to start something in direction of xy, maybe. Sure, these are not entirely separate things, the latter evolves from the former. And again, this is iterative. It never stops evolving, as the theory of evolution goes. There is always a capacity to grow, for your idea, your venture, yourself, your partner – and your customer.
By the way, if I may steal from Mr Picasso, great artists steal! You’re not inventing the wheel. Go have a look at the people who did! Let me put it in a less famous quote (so I add a little value of my own). Austin Kleon – who probably stole this from some famous artist, too – says that stealing from one source is plagiarism, stealing from many is research.
And make it fun. If you are to do this for a while, don’t grind, play with it. No perpetual planning! No set office hours! Only following your guts and going for it. If you don’t work without a kick from behind at this point, go back to step 1. Be creative, use your terrible drawing skills. People aren’t going to see it and it makes thinking business a lot more entertaining. Build a mockup. Build your prototype. Show it to people and adjust it according to feedback.
Then, stay on it. The best and simplest competitive advantage remains to just be better at what you’re doing. It takes time, effort, energy, enthusiasm and the will of the tiger. Rather, let’s make that a camel.
6. Testing
If you do a real prototyp, which I’m guessing you aren’t, it’s time to go test it properly. If you aren’t, this is the non-linear continuation of the previous step. You have your solution, your founding myth, you are set. And it’s about time to validate it. Are people responding to your social media campaign? Is your blog post being discussed? Mostly, it’s trial and error. You think you’re set. Then you restart. Or at least you go back a couple of steps and start improving. Thought Sysyphus had it hard, ey? That’s where you’re headed!
A couple of things that belong to this category. Start responding to feedback. Listening is a crucial skill and it brought you far already, time to engage your customers. Now, you start building your product or producing your content. And it’s amazing content because you know where it leads and where it comes from. You know what it is and what it is not (remember?). If you don’t, scroll back up.
From here, you’ll continue to make adjustments to your content. It won’t end. Importantly, you are validating your idea here. You are making sure you get sufficient feedback to know it’s working. No more assumptions!
7. First Paying Customer
Do you feel like this has moved too much toward starting a business? I do, kind of. The headline is no help, either. And it is important to keep in mind that it works the same way if you do it just for fun. You decide how far you are willing to go. If you are thinking just hobby, you probably read a little too far. If you are thinking entrepreneurship, let me introduce you to your first milestone: your first paying customer.
This is where my content comes to its boundaries. Here, I release you to the world of investors, creating your business plan, seriously thinking about the future, and if you still don’t have metrics to your much needed consultant.
8. Play the Infinite Game
How was that not the final point? I like writing… and I have one more surge in me. This process doesn’t really end at all. The one aspect you should keep in mind the most and are probably thinking about the least is YOU! I put this in step x and I will pin it to this last step containing the future – everything beyond the pre-entrepreurial journey, that is. Your most valuable resource is you, so build it up as much as possible.
Remember that this journey is your life and every experience that you collect is an asset, every skill that you learn can come in handy tomorrow. So, shortcuts won’t do. You have to be in for the long run lest you’ll lose interest soon and your idea shall die unborn.
Source header image: https://www.pinterest.ch/pin/558024210056161636/
