A 7 year old’s journey to build grit through lessons in design thinking and entrepreneurship…with some help from her mom. Think of it like Product Management 101, but with a 1st grader.
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Girl, you can do hard things.
A few weeks ago, my daughter Elena said she wanted to buy a robot. Not a little toy robot, but the new Amazon Astro robot. In my head, I’m thinking “Yeah, right. Like I’m going to buy a seven year old a $1,500 robot.”
But it sucks saying “No” all the time as a parent, so instead I say “Sure, if you can pay for it with your own money.”
And now the conversation shifts.
Instead of focusing on the question “Why can’t I have a robot?” we are brainstorming an answer to the question “How can I earn enough money to buy a robot?”
An additional #MomWin is that I will never get asked “Why can’t I have a robot?” in the future. Instead, the conversation will always turn back to brainstorming business ideas.
Am I a genius? I don’t know, maybe. But I’m definitely good at finding ways to avoid repetitive, never-ending arguments with my kids. Because those are the worst.
So, we start brainstorming.
Some context.
I’m Jen, a mom of two daughters, ages five and seven. Since they were born, I have been building their grit muscle. If they have grit, they will have (1) the confidence to set big goals and (2) the tools to accomplish those goals.
Their goal could be making a new friend on the first day of Kindergarten, learning to play guitar, or becoming a scientist. Grit will help them accomplish anything.
My youngest, Luisa, has grit coming out of her ears. We are identical in this way, so I know how to help her work through life’s obstacles. She is going to do whatever she sets her mind to, for better or for worse.
My oldest, Elena, is my polar opposite. She has trouble making decisions, is blocked by small obstacles, and backs away from big challenges. I don’t understand her, which means I don’t always know how to help her. So, I experiment. A lot.
I know I am not going to transform Elena to be just like me and her sister. And I don’t want to. She is a wonderful person with many amazing qualities.
But I do want to set her up to overcome the inevitable obstacles that life will throw at her.
With that purpose in mind, my goal is to guide her through experiences where she will take big chances, fail, and try again, so that in the future she has the confidence to set and accomplish goals that leave her happy and fulfilled.
That brings us to our current experiment.
Elena wants money for a robot. People will spend money to solve a problem. Therefore, Elena needs to solve a problem.
But which problem?
Going broad on potential problems is the first part of the classic “double diamond” in design thinking.
The premise is this: to find a good problem to solve, come up with lots of problems first and then throw out the bad ones. In design thinking, the phrase is “go broad and then go narrow.”
But what is a “good” problem?
I like David Bland’s take on the desirability, viability, and feasibility model. A good problem to solve is:
- Desirable: Do customers want to solve this problem? And when we get to solutions later on, do customers want to solve this problem in this way? To prove customers exist and that they want a solution to the problem, Elena will need to test her value proposition, customer segments, channels, and customer relationships.
- Feasible: Can Elena do this (with help)? Elena will need to prove that her business is technically capable of doing whatever it does at scale and at the right level of quality.
- Viable: Should Elena do this? Elena will need to prove that she can solve the problem in a way where revenue will be greater than costs, resulting in a profit.
The first thing to test is desirability — do customers want to solve this problem. If the answer is “no,” then the other two circles don’t matter.
There is an added wrinkle in here. Elena is seven years old. To keep her interested and engaged in this process, the problem she solves needs to be interesting to her.
What problems do people have that Elena wants to solve?
While going broad, Elena and I talk through lots of things that seven year olds consider big problems — not enough time for playdates during the school week, getting a tummy ache after eating too much candy, being forced to share everything with your little sister, always needing to clean up your room.
Then, Elena brings up the biggest problem in her life — falling asleep. Bedtime takes forever and is very stressful…there’s anxiety about being alone (even though she sleeps in a bunkbed with her sister), fear of bad dreams, copious amounts of crying, elaborate rituals with water, toys, blankets, and lately an ice pack eye mask, and of course tag teaming between me and my husband as we take turns losing patience.
No one in my house enjoys bedtime, and Elena concludes that this is the problem she would like to explore.
Going narrow with the problem.
Elena has officially narrowed the problem to bedtime.
That doesn’t mean this is the problem she is going to solve. She needs to validate it before jumping to the solutioning diamond.
…but, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Before she gets to the validation step, she needs to clearly define the problem by creating a customer problem statement.
First, Elena explains the problem in her own words.
Then, I guide her through writing it down more succinctly.
FYI, I turned Elena’s actual handwriting into a font. I am not trying to trick you into thinking she hand wrote this. It is more to symbolize that she did the work, even when we were typing things out on the iPad.
And this is where I will leave you, dear readers.
Elena needs to go validate this customer problem statement with potential customers.
If she finds that kids don’t think this is an important problem and parents aren’t willing to pay for a solution, no big deal. She learned something and can move on to the next problem.
That’s grit. You get knocked down. Get up. Dust yourself off. And try again.
Want to know what Elena does next?
Follow, like, subscribe or whatever the kids are saying nowadays to get the latest update on Elena’s journey → Medium | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter.
You can also join this email list for an early bird announcement of the launch of Elena’s yet to be determined solution. She is still a ways away from this, but it’s never too early to start building your Kickstarter list!
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→ Read Part 2: Get out of the building.
