Got a good idea? What next?

Having problems getting to sleep? There’s the Snoozatron, which plays soothing music, arranges your pillows just so and places a comforting teddy in your hand.

Or do you need an Autochef – a robot that will cook your eggs just the way you like them? How about a bully-proof vest that, at the press of a button, punches your adversary with a boxing glove?

If you’re a Wallace & Gromit fan you may have recognised some of these cracking contraptions from the TV series. But Gromit is not the only one capable of a startup-worthy idea.

Getting off the couch and doing something about it is the first step. Then we get ideas on what next from the team behind volunteer-run entrepreneurship outfit Doso (formerly Startup Taranaki) – Dan Thurston Crow, Katherine Blaney and Graham Nelson – along with HTK Group head of startups Jacob Varghese, and student innovation lead for the UC Centre for Entrepreneurship Pete Howard. 

‍

‍

1. Establish a lean canvas

‍

No matter what level an idea is at, the best way to set the groundwork for a sustainable business is through a lean canvas, say the Doso team.

A lean canvas is a concise one-page strategic tool used in the lean startup methodology to rapidly outline a business model. It consists of nine building blocks, addressing aspects such as customer problems, unique value proposition and revenue streams. 

Setting one up helps answer three big questions, says Nelson: “What have you done? What are you trying to do? And what's in the way?” 

A strength of the lean canvas is it encourages iteration. Once a hypothesis is tested, a founder can return to the drawing board, and easily adapt the business model based on the feedback they have received. 

A lean canvas draft provides “masses of material” to work with, says Thurston Crow. 

‍

‍

2. Validate the idea

‍

With a lean canvas in place, the next step is for startup founders to validate their idea. 

People often say ‘I’m solving a problem’ only to discover, after they talk to people, that it’s not actually a problem for anyone, says Blaney.

But it’s also not enough for an idea to solve a real problem, says Varghese; a successful business must be built on a problem “painful enough” that a customer will pay to get rid of it. 

Before taking the advice of any mentor, advisor or investor, a startup founder must listen to the customer, he says. And while desktop research is a good starting point, Varghese has found the best results come from getting out into the field as soon as possible. 

Thurston Crow agrees, though he says there are certain validation tools that work better than others. In his view, the best way to assess customer interest is to talk to people, even if it's something as simple as striking up a conversation at a supermarket. 

He says approaches like surveys, for instance, can be helpful, but they have their limitations. “Survey design is actually a skill that not many people have mastered,” he says, so the data is not always reliable. 

Once the validation is complete, return to the lean canvas and “rejig”, says Blaney. 

‍

3. Prototype quickly

‍

Validation is an iterative process. With each insight gained, a founder has the opportunity to strengthen what they have to offer. In Varghese’s view, the sooner a prototype is put together for validation, the better. 

“Whatever iteration of a product you can get into the hands of customers – even if it has wires hanging out of it – is fine because that insight is the biggest validation,” he says. 

He also says that a founder should avoid offering the product for free as it can “misguide” people around its saleability. Even if it’s a few cents or a couple of dollars, he advises ensuring people are willing to part with their money from the beginning. 

Howard has a similar view. 

Nothing will ever be perfect, he says, but you don’t want to spend years working away on something nobody actually wants. He recommends creating a minimum viable product and testing assumptions around customer value as cheaply and efficiently as possible. 

‍

4. Assess yourself

‍

While many people think business success relies on the strength of an idea, Howard has found that the person behind the product is just as important. 

“We spend a lot of time assisting people with developing their business models and with the planning and strategic side of their business, but at the end of the day [you also need] the right mindset, the emotional intelligence, etcetera, to be able to drive this venture forward,” he says. 

Similarly, Varghese says founders need to invest time in “personal accounting”.

A startup requires a lot of commitment – in particular, time and money. A prospective founder needs to establish how they can manage this new venture while sustainably meeting their other non-negotiable commitments. 

“If you don’t have that personal accounting taken care of, other stresses can come in and kill the journey,” he says. 

Howard says there are two questions founders should ask themselves: Do you really care about the problem? And, if so, what does success look like for you? 

Once a founder gets to that final question, they can work backwards and figure out what they bring to their venture and, crucially, what they don’t.

‍

5. Connect with others

‍

One of the best things a founder can do is find other people to join the journey, says Thurston Crow. Not only does it make it more fun, but it helps fill the founder’s inevitable knowledge and experience gaps, he says. 

Howard agrees: “There's not a single person on this earth that possesses all the skills, all of the knowledge, [or] capabilities, to be able to serve all aspects of the business,” he says. A startup is a “team sport”; the sooner that is recognised, the better, he says.

Central to connecting with others is being able to sell the vision, says Howard. A founder has to become a “magnet” that attracts not just customers but people that believe in the purpose of the venture and want to get behind it – whether that be co-founders, potential mentors or even investors.

The more you talk about your business idea, the more you’ll learn about it and the more likely you’ll be to find someone that can help you with it, says Blaney. Anecdotal evidence from the Startup Weekends run by the Doso team shows that those who share an idea are more likely to succeed than those who hold it in. 

Reaching out to people, even if it’s just asking to catch up for a coffee, is not something founders at any stage of their journey should be scared of, she says. “What we find is that people in the community are inclined to help if they can.” You just have to give them a chance to say no. 

‍

‍

6. Finally, execution

Everyone harbours an idea that could be amazing. But if you don’t execute, it is worth nothing, says Thurston Crow. After all, that’s what the Doso name stands for – do something. 

Don’t let fear of failure hold you back. Good things can still come from those who fail, as Serge van Dam points out in his December column for Caffeine, and second-time founders are generally considered highly backable by startup investors.