5 Creative Techniques Startup Founders Can Use To Hack The Growth
Once I met a founder who told me he took a 50-week challenge: he has been creating a short movie about his life each week. Not a long one with multiple episodes, but completely autonomous 10-minute films at the end of his 7-day sprint. So by December, he had 50 pieces of completely different genres and moods.
I wondered if that was a distraction and if didn’t he realize he should better have become a blogger, but his answer really surprised me. He admitted that this year his business grew more than any other year before. Not only was it like a creative workout for his brain to make clips while processing his life, but he felt like he had a fresh start each Monday to become a better person to see in the Sunday movie.
Anyway, that pushed me to the idea that creative techniques can actually help explore opportunities outside the box and make startups grow faster. Here are my top 5 tools which I as a creator myself highly recommend you to use in business.
1. Mind mapping combined with Moodboards
Mind mapping is a tool that can be used to visually organize ideas and concepts. It can help startup founders to brainstorm and explore new ideas and can also be used to map out business plans and strategies. But what if we add some creative thinking to this process?
Abstract thought is challenging. This is why it’s such a great idea to frame a mind map with a moodboard. You can create moodboards around business plans, using words and phrases, images, videos, rhymes, gifs, jokes, whatever you feel to match your vision. At the end of the day, you might find new customer cohorts for your product and discover opportunities for new revenue streams Here are areas that you should focus on when creating your moodboard: emotions, colors, smells, imagery, shapes, textures, memories.
2. Design thinking
Design thinking is a methodology that can be used to solve complex problems and develop new products and services. It involves empathy, experimentation, and iteration. It is often used in product design and development but can be applied to any problem-solving scenario. The goal of design thinking is to arrive at a solution that is both innovative and practical.
Although many companies have successfully used design thinking, Netflix has repeatedly leveraged it to become huge. Netflix managed to create a unique experience for each viewer based on that customer’s viewing habits, but when thinking about innovation and reinvention, human empathy has always been the secret sauce of their success.
Reinventing itself is the key to success: growing from a small company delivering DVDs to a tech giant shaping the world’s minds. Their ability to do so comes from a deep reading of what people want, as well as their behavior. Empathizing with its viewers led them to design disruptive products like the move to video streaming with personalized recommended content.
3. Reframing
Founders can fall into the trap of looking at an issue through a single frame or mindset, which is why it can be very useful to shake things up and reframe the issue.
Reframing problems gives a new outlook or a fresh point of view, enabling one to innovate more and find creative solutions.
Here are just a few steps that you can take to reframe your challenges.
- Take your bad ideas and re-examine them in more detail — is there something valuable in there?
- Look at your assumptions and challenge each of them — are your assumptions incorrect and could this change/resolve your challenge?
- Reword your question — does this create some exciting new possibilities?
- Think as if you’re somebody else — could another person have a different perspective or suggestion?
SCAMPER technique might be relevant here as well. It is an acronym for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate and Reverse. This technique can be used to generate new ideas by applying these actions to existing products or services.
4. Role-playing + 100 ideas
Role-playing is a technique that can be used to step into the shoes of different stakeholders and imagine different scenarios. It can be used to explore different perspectives and to think creatively about solutions.
Try to combine it with the 100 ideas technique. Imagine you are, let’s say, a random customer of your own product; what 100 things would you love to make with it? How to use the product in a different way? In what circumstances might this product be a lifesaver?
You need to set a timer for 15 minutes and then try to write down 100 unique ideas and solutions to your problem. Don’t be afraid to make a mistake! There are no mistakes, just imagine you are not you, you are completely another stakeholder of your product, so write down all the crazy ideas! You might be surprised at what suggestions you manage to discover.
Bonus. How to brainstorm more efficiently
We’re all familiar with the concept of brainstorming. At one point or another, you got together with your team to throw new ideas around and to produce new solutions. Let’s discover how to make this process more effective.
First of all, define your problem accurately. You don’t need to diffuse your strength, your team should focus. Then establish your context and definitions. Don’t forget to appoint a facilitator to keep track of the session! No track will lead to a waste of time. The next step is to invite the appropriate people to participate. You need different angles, so add some diversity. Set an agenda that lasts around 30 minutes. Long brainstorming meetings are not cost-effective at all!
Each and every business has its specifics, but they have similarities at the same time. Do you run an innovative tech startup? We are investing in early-stage revenue-generating software startups across the world and would love to hear from you! You can reach us at info@leta.vc.
Follow our Medium blog https://medium.com/letavc and be the first to get our insights, lists and news.
