Ideas First: 3 in 1 from the Start
The bright yellow plane has 2 wings, innovation and marketing as well as a fuselage called development. All three are fused together from the start of the innovation process.
The fuselage contains solutions that retract to help people solve problems like how to get from point A to point B really fast. The entrepreneur flies around testing for desirable solutions with potential customers.
As an entrepreneur, the tricky part is finding the runway of product/market fit before you run out of fuel. An ideas first approach usually has:
- A founder with a vision for a company
- A vision for products/services
- A good idea of products, costs and competition
Fly High & Fail Fast
The ideas first approach is really a visionary approach when it starts.It assumes multiple iterations are needed to get a product/service right. The entrepreneur is encouraged to fail fast, until product/market fit is found.It’s FUN bouncing from idea to idea quickly. Pivots and iterations are normal and expected because successful innovation is a numbers game.
But, those numbers are brutally challenging! With new product success rates hovering around 17%, constant adjustments (called iterations) are expensive.
Idea generation => concept testing => refinement. This can end up in a tailspin of “cash igniting” iterations that are hard to recover from because startups generally have limited cash reserves. There is also a second innovation approach.
Needs First Approach
A needs first approach to innovation views innovation as a trustworthy process, based on the belief that customers know their needs and there are MANY to uncover. The goal is to uncover all of those needs first and then determine which needs are unmet. Prioritizing those that people deem important. The needs first approach assumes that people buy products and services to get a job done.
Do The Right Things First To Do Things Right in the Future
With a needs first approach, innovation, marketing and development don’t start simultaneously, as they do in an ideas based approach, because your marketing message will come from the needs people are rating as important and not satisfied.
Everything travels in progression, kind of like the cars going forward on a Shinkansen or bullet train. I wasn’t aware that although the Shinkansen starts out slowly on wheels, once it picks up speed the wheels actually retract and a magnetic process allows the train to hover four inches above the ground. I didn’t realize this predictable process was taking place below my feet.
Therefore, with a needs based approach to innovation, there is a distinct order and the power of a predictable process is that you don’t need to turn the plane around mid-flight because you forgot something. You minimize iterations by uncovering all of the customers’ needs upfront.
The process is designed to go forward, yet it feels like a slow, even boring start. But the rigor of the progressive process is the key to predictable innovation. It never veers far from the needs of customers. That is the track you study throughout the process. Innovation in this sense is simply the process of devising solutions to meet unmet customer needs.
What is a Need?
Everyone has to agree on what a need is. That takes discipline and rigor to work the process. Clearly defining, capturing and prioritizing needs is worth the effort.
People buy products and services to do a job. You are discovering the needs they deem important before developing ideas to meet those needs.
What are People Trying to Do?
The job people are trying to do becomes the very thing you study to gain market insights.
Rather than monitoring a bunch of metrics, or deciphering the voice of your customer, you are uncovering the needs that are important to them for the job they are trying to do. Your solutions address those unmet customer needs.
2 Different Approaches to Innovation
Aspiring Writers
Linda and Lucy were both aspiring writers looking to share their treasuries of knowledge after many years of teaching.
They had been teaching for decades. Impacting lives as writers by putting their priceless insights on display through stories was exactly what they were looking to do.
Linda was wrapping up a career teaching corporate compliance trainings to medium and larger businesses.
Lucy, on the other hand, was a kindergarten teacher with a creative streak.
They pledged to walk step by step into their personal enterprises together. They aspired to break free from the boardroom and classroom towards entrepreneurial independence; promising each other that they would pursue their personal “sovereign startups” together.
But that meant breaking away from the familiarity of board rooms and classrooms.
Narrowed Vision
Lucy’s love for little minds as a kindergarten teacher for over 30 years had narrowed her once broad perspective and field of vision little by little.
Exposure to miniature worldviews complete with bugs, boogies and mud pies will do that to a kindergarten teacher.
She longed to open back up to the expansive worldview that had stretched her mind and heart as a child to think and act globally. Hearing about being a location independent writer was a dream that promised to propel her far and wide once again.
Big Dreamer
She rememberd many stary nights when daddy called to Lucy from his big sofa chair, “Come on big dreamer, it’s time to shoot for the moon!” as he read Eric Carlyle’s “Papa Please Get the Moon for Me” before carrying her upstairs and tucking her into bed.
He longed for little Lucy to have a “shoot for the moon” mentality and he encouraged her by sprinkling in books, words and stories about people reaching their highest potential, pursuing aspirations and achievement, while staying grounded and sensitive to the needs and concerns of others.
Scarred by the Past
But every time she felt that freedom to dream again, travel again, and live again her guilt at the hands of her aborted baby as a teenager reminded Lucy that her sentence to serve children in the same neighborhood was her life long penance. The mantra “I pay for my mistakes” was all she had known for the past 30 years.
The Keys to Freedom?
Scott seemed to somehow hold the keys to her living far and wide once again. He moved her to action with his start-up strategies.
Missional Core Values
“You know Lucy, you should consider determining your missional core values and start from there. Likeminded people will be attracted to your mission because they already prioritize the same core values” said Scott.
Lucy listening intently said, “Hmm … Well I’ve always dreamed of experiencing different cultures and perspectives, but I’m not sure about earning a living through writing. If I’m honest, it feels a bit scary.”
“What’s the mission behind the work you want to do? Start there!” said Scott.
Parents Passing on Life Lessons to their Children
“Okay, well I want to help parents pass on life lessons to their children.” said Lucy.
“Can you be more specific?” Scott said.
Lucy thought for a moment and said “Helping globally minded parents who desire to promote fairness and the universal good is really important to me. Parents who want to pave the way for their children to follow them into an inclusive world. But I REALLY love dogs too,” Lucy chuckled.
“Great! Do you feel having a profitable mission is important for you?” said Scott.
“Of course … but I don’t even know where to start.” said Lucy.
Health, Wealth or Self
Pausing to think, Scott finally asked, “Well … would you say your expertise falls into the category of wealth, self, or health?”
“Self, I guess?” said Lucy.
“Good. Would any of these apply to the parents you want to help?” asked Scott.
- The capacity to gain money?
- The capacity to start or run a successful business?
- The capacity to follow an important dream?
Empathetic
“Probably the last one about following an important dream. I want people to feel smart, so that one about being perceived as smart.” said Lucy.
“You know Lucy, I am hosting a conference for aspiring entrepreneurial writers in Bali. At a minimum it may allow you to spread your wings a bit and who knows you may hit upon an idea that allows you to share your stories with globally minded parents. You can learn some frameworks that will help you ask parents about your book ideas. What do you think?” asked Scott.
Lucy shouldn’t have hesitated for a second, but if she left her neighborhood, that meant abandoning the children in her neighborhood. She was torn and turned to her dear friend Linda.
Linda was also considering talking with Scott at Lucy’s urging, but all of her focus was on reducing inefficiencies. She’d seen many start-ups fail over her decades in business. There was one burning question she had to answer. She had to know if it was possible for customers to know and understand their needs.
Did customers really know what they were trying to do, even if they were using multiple solutions to get the entire job done?
She thought, “What if I could discover what their needs actually are, apart from the products and services they are currently using to accomplish their goal?”
Linda knew the sting of rejection from many training proposals that fell flat. She learned through experience that she didn’t always know what people wanted. “Sometimes I wonder if they do either,” Linda thought to herself.
Although she wanted to write corporate compliance training books, she had to settle that burning customer question about whether or not a customer can know their needs.
Linda met with Scott.
“Scott, if I could somehow measure customer needs, I could learn how to create value for them before developing my offer. I don’t want to publish something non one wants!” said Linda.
Linda had been in corporate too long not take take this direct approach with Scott.
“If I attend your conference, will I solve this question?” asked Linda.
“Yes, but not from me. Wally will be there and he’s a JTBD guru.” said Scott.
“You mean Jobs to Be Done, right?” asked Linda.
“You got it.” said Scott.
“I’m in. When’s the conference?”
Bound for Bali
At the conference, Linda and Lucy met a variety of different people, some of whom were allies and some of whom were enemies. Allies in the form of other aspiring authors, who shared their stories and experiences, mentored them in the art of storytelling. Enemies in the form of corporate executives, who were skeptical of their goal and tried to dissuade them from taking on their mission.
Focusing on the Craft with Fellow Writers
Lucy spent many hours discussing her own writing style, and listening to other attendees talk about the type of stories that resonated with them, and the kind of message they wanted to impart to their readers.
Lucy realized that she needed to look deep within herself to gain clarity about the kind of author she wanted to be and the kind of stories she wanted to tell.
Linda on the other hand spent all her time talking with Wally and learning more about the hundreds of needs customers actually have and how to create a visual description of a functional job that describes what the customer is trying to get done called a job map.
Customer Needs
It all revolved around the customers needs. And as she was learning, customers actually knew their needs! She was one step closer to her dream and couldn’t wait to tell Lucy all about it. She had created her job map and wanted to layout the exact steps so Lucy would consider seeing innovation as a predictable process.
Lucy also felt like she could reach for the stars with all of the ideas she had gathered and generated shining brightly in her minds eye. She was ready to write and decided to stick to ebook publishing on Amazon to see if she could find an audience to fit what she would write. Fellow world changers were sure to be found. This conference had really amped up her confidence and she was ready to shoot for the stars reaching for her best idea.
When Stars Collide
While they agreed to continue to support and check in with one another, Linda and Lucy viewed innovation in a very different light. There approach to innovation differed like night and day. Yet, they had promised to stick together on their writing journey. Always supporting one another, never pulling one another down.
