How To Generate & Refine an Actionable Tech Idea

The Proven Process to Get You from Half Baked Daydream to Sound Foundation for Launch

Welcome fellow launchers to BowTiedLaunch! You’re here because you have an idea and you’re serious about building it out. Before that.

Let’s pump the brakes. I myself and many colleagues have spent vast resources spinning wheels in the mud on ideas that had no legs or that needed major overhauls.

Before you proceed spending precious time, psychic energy and capital let’s make sure that your launch site is on sound footing. 

We’re going to go through an exercise in this post that eliminates a lot of waste and sets us up for success. Our goals are as follows:

1. Generate many ideas in the general problem space (divergent thinking)

2. Select and refine the best 2 or 3 ideas from that list by applying analysis (convergent thinking)

Think You’re Too Good for This Post? A Word of Caution:

Even if you *think* you already have the greatest idea since sliced bread I recommend the exercise in this post.

Either one of three things will happen:

1. You’ll discover the problem you’re trying to solve isn’t worth it and pick a new one that is worth it.

2. You’ll discover that the problem you’re trying to solve is worth it but you’ll generate 3-5 different ways to solve it and pick the best incarnation of the solution concept.

3. You’ll discover that your idea is indeed the greatest idea since sliced bread. You’ll be able to articulate clearly to stakeholders and prospects WHY it’s a great idea and you’ll proceed with more confidence.

Set Your Mindset First - Market Pull Always Beats Technological Push

Let’s make sure we avoid one of the most common mistakes before we start: Most tech enthusiasts have a tendency to fall in love with a technology then try to figure out how to use it in the market (technological push).

This is a bad approach to start with. It usually ends in heartache. Take it from Steve Jobs:

“Your Solution is an Afterthought - Always Start with the Problem”

- BowTiedLaunch

As Jobs states, you’re better off starting with the user and his/her problem *first* then working backward (market pull). This ensures that your focus is in the right place and that we’re providing a solution that someone will actually pay for. Furthermore, as you proceed and you need to mutate/tweak your solution, you can do so while still staying true to your core mission of solving Problem X or serving Customer Y. 

Getting to the Meat - BowTiedLaunch’s Recommended Framework - The Lean Canvas

BTL is a strong advocate of the Lean Startup methodology.

The concept is actually based on the once revolutionary Toyota Quality Control System now commonly known as Lean Manufacturing.

The concept is that we apply the principles of running an efficient high quality production line and apply those to getting traction with your idea as quickly as possible.

Graphic of the Lean Canvas business model framework. There are many facets. We will focus on the 3 boxes highlighted for now in the interest of generating ideas.

In a Lean System, we start with the most risk prone processes first (like verifying business assumptions about demand) so that if there is a problem we can stop there and not wait until later in the process after we’ve expended a lot of resources on the work piece (in this case, your business!). I’ll cover more on how you can apply Lean Manufacturing in another post.

Right now, we’re going to use the Lean Canvas as a technique to assist you in generating and selecting the best ideas for your business. We will be focusing on: 1) Customer Segment, 2) Problem Statement and 3) Your Solution.

Lean Canvas Phase 1 - Ideation/Generation (Divergent Thinking):

We’re going to start the process by being radically open minded. 

Understand your psychology. You generally have two modes of thinking: divergent thinking where you’re open ended and convergent thinking where you are selecting/deciding. 

To maximize results, first you’re going to put your mindset in a state where anything is possible and you are on divergent thinking. There are no threats. There are no dumb ideas. You are going to just let it rip. Putting yourself in this mindset, it will give you the biggest “buffet” of ideas that we can work off of from the start.

Repeat the divergent portion of this section as many times as you can until you start seeing a significant drop off in the quality of the ideas.

Set a timer and crank out ideas. Don’t judge yourself until the timer is done.

Practical note: I will give some guidelines on the step 1 of 3 just so there’s *some* structure but for the latter two we will only impose filters afterward. You want to put yourself in a mindset of “anything is possible” and refine after.

The Three Million Dollar Questions: