The vicious cycle of ideation
Warming up
Ideation is defined as the creative process of generating, developing, and communicating new ideas.
Well, after spending the last weeks ideating, allow me to put it differently:
Ideation isn’t a process, rather it’s a state of mind. It is the active decision one makes to channel every single thought, every awakening moment, towards one specific goal.
It is at times exhausting, confusing and even frustrating.
Suddenly, each subway ride, every break between classes, or the precious moments before I went to sleep — were now charged with a new meaning — they had become an opportunity.
Ready, set, go
My team and I decided not to give up. Instead, we set a goal: come up with an idea before this week’s sprint, the first shot in our journey at Cornell Tech startup studio.
The guidelines:
- We want to stay in the Urban Tech space (specifically, PropTech);
- We want to be excited about this idea;
- We want to be innovative.
It was complicated: we conducted market research, lots of interviews and even consulted experienced practitioners. We went one step forward only to get two steps back — it felt like we were facing a brick wall.
Halfway through
We explored data-driven house price estimates (probably heard about Zestimates, for example), crowdfunding for real estate projects, cut-the-middle-man service to replace brokers, to name a few. We were also fascinated by architecture and design, smart homes, and, at some point, even thought about entering into the autonomous vehicles world.
It was fun to fantasize about creating a product with an unlimited amount of resources, in a market with no competitors. In these settings, each of us had over 1000 different ideas to choose from. And then, reality happened.
We realized that time is our most significant resource, one we can’t control, and that’s running out.
Photo Finish
One of our interviews shed light on a fascinating niche overlooked by the iBuying industry. (read more about iBuying here)
iBuying firms, such as Opendoor and Zillow, are not putting efforts into the market of remodeling and renovating prior to the selling of the house.
Why? It is too complicated! This is also the reason why homeowners are often deterred from renovating a house before selling it.
Yet, data reveals that even small scale renovations, such as replacing the kitchen cabinets or renovating the bathroom, can cause a steep increase in selling price.
That was the sign we needed — a true opportunity. We spent a week pitching the idea within the team, as a chef does upon the creation of a new dish — without knowing whether it is going to work.
Little did we know, that idea was only the very beginning.
We squeezed this journey into a four-minute presentation and crossed our fingers in the wait for feedback.
Indeed, a lot more work awaits. At least, in the meantime, we can give our brains some rest.
In case you find any of the above interesting (apparently the economist does!), keep following
