This Start-up framework can help to find the right idea and gives you a prominent solution design approach, without investing a single penny.
Found a real-world wonderful problem, have faith to solve it and have the courage to build the businesses. Now it’s time to evaluate and validate the thoughts.
try {
let idea = haveThoughts();
while (idea.validated) {
idea.evaluate()
}
let plan = doLogical();
} finally {
return code.buildProduct(idea, plan);
}Step 1: Let’s discuss the problem, how big this problem is, and what are the local solutions or patches available. Problems can be 100 or more.
Write your product idea, market size analysis, and workflow, identify all of the problems and solutions and make it at least 100-500 pages of detail research on the topic.
Step 2: Let’s talk about the possible solutions, and select one solution. It’s okay to be current solution solves only 5-10 problems out of 100 defined previously and then thought about why we think this solution will solve the problem eventually and why this only solution can solve the problem.
Pick any 3-10 problems and design the solution. Why you think your solution can actually fix the problem, not because you identify the problem and design the solution is a very stupid answer. Have some concrete logic, conviction on thoughts, and evidence around that.
Step 3: Long-term plans are not required at this stage, let it be a short-term coming 6-12 months plan but a concrete one. How much money is required for this short plan? What will do with this money e.g. tech and product building say 30%, marketing: 30%, operation cost: 20%, sales for this stage say 20%?
Don’t think too much futuristic. Just for the next 6-12 months what’s your plan? Actually why you started with self-fund and then investor? Investors want to know what you do with the money and how many years require to get back the money with profits.
Step 4: Let’s talk about what are the possible challenges the product will face such as legal issues, competitors, consumer mentality and mindset, available patching solutions that will create noise, etc.
These challenges could be consumer mindset and habits, legal problems, or competitors. We can say this section is about the risk of business.
Step 5: It’s action time now, product idea formed now, let’s talk about the executions. The plan must be concrete, achievable, and logical. Found execution partners/peers and outcomes that we can measure to see the progress of our short-term plan.
If you have a SaaS-based product I’ve two posts on tech selection, you can read them also: The Interface and The Engine.
To evaluate the idea some ground reports, surveys and stats will be helpful. Iterate validation till got is positive and repeat steps 1 to 4 before investing too much money and time to start step 5.
and that’s it, now this start-up framework can help to evaluate the right idea and gives you a prominent solution design approach, without investing a single penny. This is not the only way to evaluate and design the solution, there are many, but this is a good start to finding a near approach. In a general startup, pitches are more defined than those 5 points in a nutshell, but I recommend creating a large and details research document for yourself and creating a concise pitch out of that.