When A Painter Loses A Painting
How To Solve A Problem Worth Solving
I had the pleasure of participating as a judge in two separate pitch competitions this week. The first was at University of Maryland’s Dingman Center For Entrepreneurship and the second was a Maker Faire at Oyster Adams Bilingual School in Washington, DC. Both events showcased prominent, young entrepreneurs and despite one group being older than the other I believe the former could learn a great deal from the latter.
The Dingman semifinal pitch competition is the University of Maryland’s only business competition exclusively for Maryland students. The competition is held annually with students competing for more than $30,000 in startup funding. The startups represented various industries such as edtech, online publishing platforms, retail and beauty consultation. This early-stage, student-run startups that have demonstrated initial traction were judged by the following criteria:
- The business idea uniquely addresses a problem or need in the market.
- The presenter has clearly identified the target customer and/or market.
- Presenter illustrated competitive advantage.
- Presenter clearly articulated a revenue model.
- The entrepreneur presented a compelling vision for the business.
- Presenter convinced you the prize money will propel them/the startup to the next stage.
Overall, I was pleased with the presentation skills, energy, and excitement the 18–21-year-olds displayed during their four-minute pitches. However, the one criteria the startups didn’t quite satisfy was whether the business idea uniquely addressed a problem or need in the market. A majority of the student-run startups lacked a clear understanding of their target market and consumer demand. This showed me that they didn’t conduct thorough customer interviews to gather critical feedback during product development or even the conceptual stages. Very few of the founders actually conveyed if they were solving a problem worth solving — something the elementary schoolers were able to masterfully assess.
The Maker Movement started in California and has spread around the world, attracting inventors, tinkerers, artisans, and programmers. The Maker Faire’s main goals were education and fun. However, since the kids put effort into their projects and took the opportunity to win a prize pretty seriously, we made sure the judging process was systematic. The judging criteria included:
- Creativity — How creative is it?
- Resourcefulness — Did they do something cool without spending money, using recycled materials?
- Difficulty — How hard was it to pull off?
- Execution Quality — Is it well put together or slapdash? Is it presented well?
- Wow Factor — Is there something about it that makes you say “wow?”
- Educates Attendees — Does it somehow inform or educate people? Does the presentation help inform people?
The prizes were: 1st — $100, 2nd — $50, 3rd — $25. The first place winner was a dog feeder made by a 3rd grader. The young founder, after interviewing her whole family, realized that there was a lack of communication regarding who was supposed to feed their dog and at what time. She mocked up designs and devoted (afterschool) time to iteratively build products to meet the needs of her family members. Her final product was two boxes stacked on top of each other with a collapsible divider to release food down to an opening that the dog could retrieve food from. The product was also equipped with a manual clock on the front. The young entrepreneur constructed an attractive, sturdy, easy to use dog feeder complete with a reminder (clock) of the time for the next feeding.
The college students, while delivering great pitches, were consumed with adding features and selling vision while the 5th graders created minimum viable products (MVP) solving real-world, urgent customer problems. The juxtaposition of these two approaches reminds me of a scene from the 1993 film, Six Degrees of Separation. In this film, Donald Sutherland’s character, an art dealer, described why he loved paintings in the first place. He remembered how easy it is for a painter to lose a painting. Sutherland asks his child’s second-grade art teacher, “Why are all your students geniuses? You’ve made my child a Matisse. What is your secret?” The teacher replies, “I don’t have any secret. I just know when to take their drawings away from them.”
The painter paints and paints for months and then one day loses the structure, the sense of it — ultimately losing the painting. The painter, in this case, is the entrepreneur. Knowing when to stop investing time designing features or services that consumers do not want is essential for the identity of your startup.
The children were able to create an MVP because they could clearly identify a problem worth solving for themselves and consumers. Their worlds are much smaller than the college students’ as they can only seek reinforcement from peers in class and their immediate family at home. One-hundred percent of their market either sleeps down the hall from them or sits in an adjacent desk nine hours a day. Children are able to analyze metrics and validate learning without even knowing they’re doing it.
Go to where your consumers live and play. Understand their needs and wants. When building your next business consider thinking from the point of view of a child.
