The mindset of an entrepreneur and methods of experimentation

You can change your mindset and start finding your path to the world of startups.

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

This is the second article of our Monday session series where we share our intern’s experience from Red Brick Accelerator’s weekly coaching sessions.

Find the previous article here: 1. What I learned about startups in just one evening

This week we met again with our coach Orfeuo Lionor to continue our experimentation workshop. Previously, we spoke about the benefits of experimentation and making assumptions about early adopters. This time we talked about the practical methods of experimentation and the perfect mindset of an entrepreneur which I found to be the most interesting and life-changing notion of this session.

The mindset of an entrepreneur

It is no secret that a good entrepeneur sees the world differently from others. During the previous session, we discussed looking out for the pains and inconveniences of people around us. These observations may give us potentially valuable startup insights. The rationale here is that good entrepreneurs think in terms of people’s needs and possible solutions as opposed to coming up with a product and then looking for a suitable audience. So, good entrepreneurs do have a different mindset. Are they simply blessed? I do not think so. I believe that anyone can change the way they process information. My understanding of this transformation is that we have to become more curious about the world and the people around us. Insatiable curiosity is the key to this mindset. We want to start talking to people and thinking about things which seem obvious — our everyday activities, such as waiting for a bus, buying a plane ticket, ordering a meal, etc. This way we will start seeing patterns — similar complaints, similar problems people experience, etc. It is important to keep these patterns in mind constantly. The main product of this mindset is the epiphanies we get from our everyday observations. This is when the status quo is truly challenged. All these things no longer seem obvious, because we have been able to identify a problem that several people experience. These epiphanies are what we can then go by.

Workshop caption: The visual description of how data can be processed.

Methods of experimentation

There are many methods of experimentation, and those we discussed with Orfy can be classified by the nature of the information they provide (quantitative or qualitative) and by their reliability. One thing that they all have in common is that we work with people around us, which makes them perfectly doable. In fact, I found different methods of experimentation remarkably easy and similar in execution, whereas the insights they provide are extremely valuable.

But if we run an experiment, we want to know what we are looking for and how to navigate through the information we receive. Preparation is what it takes to do this with success. Depending on our method, we will be talking to people or asking them to do certain things (e.g. show me how you buy a plane ticket). We need to determine what piece of information we receive will be an indicator of their market behavior in the context of our research. The classification of information varies from method to method.

Workshop caption: Experiment types. LOFI stands for lower reliability, HIFI for higher reliability.

Another way is QAPO — a unique methodology that offers four independent perspectives which I found extremely helpful and comprehensive. Because of their difference, one interview can give both concrete information about the subject and things to concentrate on during the next interview. When we ask people to talk to us about a certain issue, their monologue will be broken down into four categories:

Workshop caption: Data sorting in QAPO.

My takeaway:

My main conclusion is that there are lots of startup opportunities right under my nose, but the ability to see them depends on my mindset. There is nothing wrong with thinking of the obvious and trying to understand things that go without saying. Lots of everyday problems go without being solved. These are the pains and inconveniences that wait for their solution.

• The key to the mindset of an entrepreneur is curiosity and the ability to see patterns
• We should look out for patterns and analyse them
• The insights these patterns give are extremely valuable
• If we run an experiment, we should know how to treat the new information
• There are many methods of experimentation, everyone can do them

Red Brick Accelerator offers intense coaching and mentoring for your idea and early-stage startup. Go see here when the next application period starts!