[Video] Startup Snacks: The Idea
Our first startup snack interviews Raken’s CTO/CPO Dr. Sergey Sundukovskiy on startup ideas: where they come from, how to tell a good one from a bad one, and what to do once you’ve got one. You can also check out the full transcript of the video below the video.
I have an interesting story some point when I had already done my first startup, I decided to do yet another startup that had nothing to do with original idea of what the other start up was. This had to do more with coming up with the game to teach adults how to do Facebook marketing.
Now, I’ve never done a game and I thought, well, how difficult could it really be? As it turns out, it could be pretty difficult. We started with their earlier prototype and did all that testing and feedback started coming back with “you guys should never do a game, this is terrible, this is absolutely horrible you guys” and I was glad that we didn’t put an address on our website because, you know there one guy wrote “if I had a baseball bat I would be there teaching you guys how to do a game properly.” You know, we took that feedback in stride and there were a couple of feedbacks like this. So we started iterating on the game and the feedback started coming back more positive and eventually came back with “this is amazing, this is wonderful.” Your original idea might suck, your original execution might not be good, but if you keep at it eventually it will turn out to be great.
Look at the existing industry, whatever it might be. And try to have an open mind from a point of view of what gets done in industry. Ideas tend to be generated one of two ways. Either generated by insiders, having been an industry for quite a long time. So they know all the issues that are happening with the industry, but at the same time usually have blinders on them, the way they do things is usually related to how things have been done for many, many years. Next is an outsider who distinguishes her new work, or somebody who comes up with an idea of improving something who has keen observational techniques that they use in order to observe what people do and ask themselves questions. Why? Why do people do it this way? Is there a better way? Usually when you ask a question, if there’s a better way, you will find lots of ideas to execute on.
The biggest misconceptions of the would-be entrepreneurs is the idea that they have to come up with something absolutely and totally original and that’s usually one of the biggest misconceptions. One of the best ideas come from what is called the adjacent possible. Looking at the core of the existing problem and looking at some of the things which it could be logically extended and sold. In other words, you have one specific area which has been explored less than others and that’s called adjacent possible. Well, let me give you an example of the adjacent possible. If I talked about a space elevator- we all know what an elevator is. But how would the space elevator work- that would be something of adjacent impossible. I would have to solve a number of problems on the way to getting my space elevator right. I would have to invent a way of getting a cable up there and hook it to the moon so I can somehow get the elevator off on the right foot. Two, there’s a number of technologies that we need to be working through. These problems actually involve building a market and then potentially coming up with a number of different ideas. A number of different ideas that arise along the way are so big, as in something that’s closer to two of the four things that have been sold is probably a better idea.
Ideas are cheap. Cheap cheap. There’s lots of ideas, there’s hardly ever any shortage there is usually plenty of ideas you can go and execute on and that’s uh that’s what distinguishes an entrepreneur, it’s the fire in the belly to go and actually solve a particular problem. So it’s not really the idea, it’s the execution on that idea and your desire to make a difference. After noticing that something is wrong and seeing a problem that needs to be addressed the next thing is how do you address it in an exactly right solution. So the next step is to look to the solution and make sure that that solution is sustainable. So this is something that’s not too expensive to be executed will be sustainable in the context of a business. So for instance, if we decided we’re going to do a daily report for our customers we would send people to the construction site and have them do a daily report on behalf of the client that would be a solution but it would not be a sustainable solution. It would be too expensive to execute, so look for solutions that are practical and sustainable.
