Ideation & Validation

Question 1

3 kinds of ideas

Answer 1

1. Simplify
2. Me too
3. Virtualize

Question 2

3 Ways of solving problems

Answer 2

1. Simplify Idea – Makes things easier for user
2. Me too – take a current idea to new market
3. Virtualize – moving and activity into online space
4. Remix – combining different ideas
5. Mission (almost) impossible

Question 3

SCAMPER

Answer 3

Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify (Also magnify and minify), Put to another use, Eliminate, and Reverse

Question 4

Vitamins VS Painkillers

Answer 4

Vitamins are:

• “nice to have,”
• improves or extends existing solutions
• addresses users’ emotional needs

Painkillers

• “Need to have”
• addresses obvious, functional unmet needs

Question 5

Evaluating Ideas

Answer 5

1. Vitamin or Painkiller
2. Easy to monetize
3. Simple (easy to explain) [x is like y, but instead of z,
   you can d]
4. Personally relevant
5. Can you follow through
6. Is their a big enough market
7. Do you have the secret source (differentiate)

Question 6

What 3 big questions should User Studies answer?

Answer 6

1. What do they need?
2. What do they want?
3. Can they use our solution?

Question 7

What are some ways in which you can measure interest in a particular solution?

Answer 7

Email
Open rates, click through rates, and task completion rates for recipients all provide insight into whether your idea has value.

Purchase advertisements that target searches relevant to your business. You can know what language customers are using to find solutions related to your business, and you can measure click through rate to determine customer interest in the copy of the ad.

Landing Pages
You can build a landing page to complement your advertising. The landing page can be your proof of concept and allow you to test click through rates on buttons such as “buy now”, “register” or “share”. The clicks serve as further validation of the idea.

Buttons
Add buttons for specific features or services that your business will provide. Even if the buttons aren’t functional, you can measure interest and collect emails or other demographics on users. If a design element (such as a button) doesn’t actually work on your website, be sure to indicate that to users and explain to users why it isn’t working.

Question 8

Tools for understanding market demand?

Answer 8

Keyword Evaluation (Google AdWords) What are people searching for? What do you notice after filtering the high volume keywords?

Content Competition (Google Search) What type of content appears in your searches? (articles or companies) Is this consistent for other keyword searches related to your idea?

Geographic Validation (Google Trends) Where do people live who are searching for related keywords? What barriers might exist to deliver the product or service?

Social Media Validation (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest) What volume of people use keywords related to your idea? How are users talking about related ideas? Handy for communicating your idea and for marketing materials later.

https://www.shopify.com/blog/product-research

Question 9

Exercises for refining the idea

Answer 9

1. The first tweet
   - (describe idea in 140 characters or less)
2. Future press release
   - Title&Tagline
   - State problem & define target users
   - Details of the solution
   - Why we did this (in your voice)
   - Why customers love it (in their voice)
   - how customers get started using it
3. Executive Summary
   - What is the product called?
   - Who it’s for and how many
   of these users exist?
   - What problem it solves and
   how valuable is the
   solution to users?
   - How it solves that problem
   and what the solution
   looks like, and why your
   approach is durably
   different than the
   competition?
   - When it will ship and what
   the major milestones are

Question 10

Exercises for refining the idea

Answer 10

1. The first tweet
   - (describe idea in 140 characters or less)
2. Future press release
   - Title&Tagline
   - State problem & define target users
   - Details of the solution
   - Why we did this (in your voice)
   - Why customers love it (in their voice)
   - how customers get started using it
3. Executive Summary
   - What is the product called?
   - Who it’s for and how many
   of these users exist?
   - What problem it solves and
   how valuable is the
   solution to users?
   - How it solves that problem
   and what the solution
   looks like, and why your
   approach is durably
   different than the
   competition?
   - When it will ship and what
   the major milestones are

4. Experience strategy 
    template
-For the [target customer]
-who is dissatisfied with 
 [current market alternative]
-our product is a [new 
  product category]
-that provides a [capability to 
  solve target customer's 
  important problems]
-unlike [the product 
  alternative]
-we have assembled [key 
  features]

Question 11

Design thinking process

Answer 11

1. Empathize
2. Define
3. Ideate (solutions)
4. Prototype
5. Test