The process of idea generation -- coming up with one, filtering and then taking it through the process of germination, evaluation, design, validation and building is a hard one. My co-founder Gordon Chaffee and I wanted to share our experiences doing that across multiple startups with other to-be entrepreneurs in the hope that it would help them as they went through this process themselves.
This was presented as a talk to CMU-SV students recently as part of Stuart Evan's class on Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
1. The Care and Feeding of
Ideas
Gaurav Mathur, Gordon Chaffee
g@defend7.com, gordon@defend7.com
2. About Us
CEO & Co-founder, Defend7. Enterprise security startup.
CTO & Co-founder, 3LM. Mobile device mgmt company, deeply focused on
Android. Acquired by Motorola Mobility/Google.
Partner Technology Manager, Android/Google. (Joined Android when there
were 20k devices…)
Co-founder and VP of Engineering, Defend7. Enterprise security startup.
SVP Engineering at Riverbed. Scaled team from 15 to 330 over 9 years.
VP at netVMG, Director at Inktomi, Fast Forward networks, Valicert.
3. The recipe for a good startup
Idea +
Product +
Team +
Execution
4. Finding an Idea, AKA
Literally your million $ question
Survey Domains Pick a Domain Learn Generate Idea
5. Survey Domains
Where are investment dollars flowing?
What are new startups focusing on?
Where is the overall market going?
Eat Techcrunch for breakfast.
6. Flow of Early venture dollars
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Billions
Thanks Crunchbase. Grab my derived dataset.
Social Media
Storage
Education
Security
Hardware + Software
Analytics
Advertising
Games
Curated Web
Finance
Health and Wellness
Enterprise Software
Mobile
Health Care
The 2010 slump
The 2013 peak
7. Zooming in on a few domains
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Security spurt
Steady advertising
2010-Q1 2010-Q2 2010-Q3 2010-Q4 2011-Q1 2011-Q2 2011-Q3 2011-Q4 2012-Q1 2012-Q2 2012-Q3 2012-Q4 2013-Q1 2013-Q2 2013-Q3 2013-Q4 2014-Q1 2014-Q2
Billions
Post Zynga Games dry up
Spurt in Finance – wealth
mgmt & bitcoins
Verticalization of Mobile?
Dollars moving to Health
Thanks Crunchbase. Grab my derived dataset.
8. Pick a Domain
Start with your area of expertise
… Or the closest area that piques your interest.
Don’t be afraid of new domains
… Fresh eyes foster innovation in existing domains!
9. Learn
Spend at least 2 weeks trying to become an expert.
(Resources: Analyst reports, Expert blogs, Techcrunch)
Where is the industry now? Where is the wave going?
Who are the players & what products are they selling?
What are customer pain points?
10. Learn
Align with where the market is going, not where it is now.
Domain switching is expensive – avoid doing it frequently.
Photo credit
11. Lifecycle of an Idea
Seed Germinate Evaluate Design Validate Build
Photo credit
Survey Domains Pick a Domain Learn Generate Idea
12. Seed
Find a potential problem and a probable solution.
13. Germinate
Why Now? Does this improve things by 10x?
Why are you the right team to solve this?
Why would this product be “hired” by your customer?
Don’t try to “find a billion $ idea”. Things rarely start there.
Photo credit
14. Evaluate
Don’t get emotionally attached to an idea. Be objective.
But remember, all ideas have problems. Balance.
Eliminate bad ideas quickly.
15. Design
What is you customer facing product? Think Top down.
Product mgmt is making decisions with incomplete data.
Stay focused on the problem you are solving.
Resist the urge to write code (yes, seriously!).
16. Validate
Test your hypotheses with circle of trust & experts.
Validate with your customers.
The more data points, the stronger the validation.
Make sure the problem you are solving exists!
17. Build
Building is not a substitute for customer feedback!
What can you build in 1 week? Get to customers ASAP!
Cut corners. Optimize for time to market.
Focus. Do little, but do it well.
18. And finally... The Leap of Faith
You will have to decide with
incomplete information.
BUT
I highly recommend it…
20. Some Tips
Always be learning. “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” - Steve Jobs
Separate fact from hypothesis. Make data driven decisions.
Evolve fast based on customer feedback.
Build a great team – might be your only constant.
21. And Finally, a Good Mantra
Sell.
Design.
Build.
(Shamelessly taken from John Vrionis at Lightspeed)
