Embarking on a 100:10:1 sprint — part 1

4 min readJul 17, 2016

So, Gonçalo Pestana told me about a the 100:10:1 method for game design, and how some [1, 2] people used the method for idea generation and validation, even outside the game development environment. Him, and a couple of friends, were going to try it out as an exercise, and I joined the bandwagon. I’ll try to document as things go along and, probably, fail. This posts are also an attempt to consolidate knowledge and create accountability.

The initial plan

The main structure of the initial plan had plenty in common with the framework of the 100:10:1 method.

Step 1 — Gather 100 ideas during a short period of time. They don’t have to be good, just write down all of them in a short period of time.

Step 2 — Pick 10 of the ideas based on a certain criteria, and implement crude MVPs or/and validation for all of them in parallel. Test and evaluate their potential

Step 3 — Pick one of the MVPs, focus on it. Polish ship and sell.

The immediate flaws

Problem creativity problem

As I read the plan, it immediately becomes clear that, as it might work for game development, it would most likely fail on service design. Mostly because of the first step. Game development is a creative process, and games very often contain a narrative, and immersive artwork. The idea for a game might be very much personal, and a result of inspiration and creativity. While you might find a creative ways to solve a problem, if you use creativity to come up with a problem you’re very likely on the wrong track.

Problem for Solution problem

Another problem with the original method for services is the old “Creating a problem for the solution”. We all have an endless list of technologies we want to use, and we probably have constructed problems around them. I’m aware of this bias on myself, and I’ve seen it countless times around me. If I was the only one coming up with the initial 100 ideas, I would most likely include ideas from the available solutions that I would find “sexy” at the moment.

My Problem Problem

Even if we remove the previous factors, then comes the personal overfit of the ideas. We all live in our personal bubbles, and as engineers, we like to optimise everything we do. We usually forget that our daily lives are very much unusual. Working at a startup (Holvi) I’ve had the luck of changing tasks and replacing college’s duties during their vacations. Doing support, and general operations made me realise how much some their tasks were daunting yet easily automated and improved with a couple lines of code. Yet as a startup, and with a frantic schedule, some people were either too shy, or overestimated the effort those tasks would take. Or sometimes ideas just got lost in backlog, always overtaken by customer facing issues. With this experience I realised I systematically forgot to put myself in other people’s shoes, specially when coming up with new ideas.

Far From Sight Problem

The final bias, and the most difficult to fix, is something I long ago wrote on my notes. I don’t remember why, or the context, but I know I’ve become aware of that bias:

My mistakes
#1 thinking the target is only the developed countries

This is hard to fight, since I have no idea about the daily struggles of 83.6% of the world’s population (sad to say this). I have no personal first hand experience on what they go through, and how we can make their life better with a cheap internet enabled device (assuming they have one). Which boils down to the internet meme First world problems:

And yet, we’re so focused on our own daily problems that, in comparison with less developed environments, our ideas seem ridiculous, and yet so important to us. It seems that it’s in the human nature to find new problems once the previous ones are solved, maybe to constantly propel humanity forward, in gigantic hedonic treadmill. While some can argue that today’s 1st world problems will be the 3rd world problems in a couple of years, there are countless issues that we are not aware of. Problems with simples solutions that can impact millions of people.

So, in the end, I tried to tune out the first step to counteract my known personal biases.

The actual plan

Step 1 —Gather 100 ideas during a short period of time. Interview as many people as possible and ask them about their daily life, their hobbies, their travels. Ask them about their communities, and their social lives. Ask them what’s bothering them, and what things they hate to do. Also the things they love. Try to get as wide demographics as possible. Derive their problems and ideas to solve them.