Transforming an Idea Into a Business with Design Thinking

The Structured Approach from Silicon Valley for Entrepreneurs and Leaders

Muhammad Mashhood Alam

• Publisher: Productivity Press
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351266543
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

We are living in fascinating times, when the power of technology is not just reshaping, but is transforming the globe in unprecedented ways. These include the ability to connect with anyone across the globe in an instant using a tiny device in the palm of our hands to the availability of self-learning systems to take over, not only the most mundane of tasks, but the most sophisticated tasks previously thought to be performable only by superior human faculties.

Regardless of whether you consider this progress to be beneficial to society or harmful, these technological advancements are here to stay. On one hand, these current transformational technological advancements threaten this stability of society. On the other hand, they present an opportunity for all of us to awaken our inner entrepreneurs.

This book makes the transition from an employee to an entrepreneur smooth for the masses. Many of us have ideas to improve this world in some way and even feel strongly about some of those ideas at a deeper level. However, we find ourselves perplexed on two levels:

1. Where to start when building an idea into a business?

2. What are the various dimensions and activities needed to launch an idea into a business?

This book will introduce you to a structured framework, called Transform3+1, to transform your idea into a business by following simple and specific steps spread across four stages. The framework is grounded in the belief that all solutions solve human problems using technology or otherwise. The first stage will help you understand the problem facing your target user by building empathy. Once you understand the problem, comes the stage of devising a solution in an iterative manner through prototyping the new concept and validating with the user. Most start-ups fail not because they didn't find the right problem to solve for the target user or that their solution lacked technological prowess but because they could not figure out a sustainable business model. Third stage will focus on crafting a business model. And the final stage introduces you to a unique approach of managing risk associated with your venture.

This unique framework leverages the principles of Design Thinking, agile development, and lean start-up combined in an easy to follow manner by anyone and helps transform ideas into business in a short timeframe with little or no investment.

Chapter 1

Democratizing Entrepreneurship

With the famed stories of entrepreneurial stalwarts like Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Bill Hewlett and David Packard, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and the like, entrepreneurship has been perceived as the realm of elite workaholics who are passionate about their vision and achieved their vision through supernatural drive and perseverance in the face of adversity.

Although mostly grounded in some reality, that perception has also caused the masses to believe that entrepreneurship is not for all. There are two types of perspectives in this regard.

The first perspective comes from those people who are not tech savvy but have an idea of a solution to a problem they have uncovered. In some cases, they may also not have a real understanding of the problem facing a specific segment of people. However, because of their lack of understanding of technology, they tend to believe they cannot do anything with their ideas.

The other perspective comes from tech-savvy individuals who might be even working as product managers in technology companies. This perspective is based on their perception about the complexity of the process of moving their ideas from napkin to a business. Essentially, they do not know how to move their idea forward. This group also has the tendency of falling in love with the technological solution they have conceived and they do not appreciate the importance of understanding the problem first.

Both of these groups also are wary of taking risks that would subject themselves and their families to psychological stress and economic hardship.

The approach presented in this book brings together the two perspectives with the basic point of view that technology should be considered as a tool to augment human abilities, as famously quipped by Doug Engelbart, the great thought leader in the computing world.

It is time to unleash the power of human ingenuity across the globe. This structured approach of innovation should play its small part in achieving this vision.

1.1 Why Another Book on Entrepreneurship?

Over the past two decades, numerous books have been written on entrepreneurship. Some are about the author’s own journey through entrepreneurship, some talk about financial and fund-raising aspects of entrepreneurial endeavors, some talk about starting a small business, some focus on building a team, others discuss marketing aspects and many discuss the accounting aspects. But none of them give a structured approach to taking an idea and then building a business.

This book provides a structured framework that anyone can use to transform their idea into a business by using principles of Design Thinking, agile development and lean start-up combined in an easy manner.

1.2 A Mind-set for Growth

One of the main reasons aspiring entrepreneurs are unable to embark on the journey of changing the world is their mind-set. As Carol Dweck recommends in her book Mindset, to change your mind-set from a fixed to a growth one, you should imagine what actions you will take, how you will take them and when you will take them. This book will give you a practical step-by-step approach in moving you from your idea to a business.

1.3 Basic Essence of This Innovation Approach

In today’s fast-paced world, it is hard to keep up with the advancement in any field. The importance of balancing creative sparks with analytical rigor cannot be overstated. Analytical rigor focuses on leveraging new technologies to solve problems. However, creativity is required to find the problem to solve in the first place. Balancing the two sides is likely to yield the best results .

Contrary to the widely believed misconception that creativity is a result of right-brain activity and that only some blessed ones among us possess this rare trait, I have come to believe that each and every one of us is creative. However, with the passage of time and the effects of influences since our birth, first others and then we ourselves start questioning our ideas. This crushes our confidence in our creative abilities and instills doubt in our thought process.

Having experienced both the sides – the intuitive and the rational – this book connects the human-centered, design-thinking concepts with business and technology concepts. This approach takes the best from the principles of Design Thinking, a process codified by David and Tom Kelley^* of IDEO^* and Stanford D School^* , a lean start-up model by Eric Riess and my own personal experience in driving innovation out of Silicon Valley.

In this book, I bring insights from the numerous creative engagements that I have led over the years to solve problems facing large and small companies across varying industries around the globe. The frameworks that you’ll see in this book have been curated based on my real-life experiences working with large and small companies and Silicon Valley start-ups across industries that include consumer products, retail, high technology, oil and gas, manufacturing, health care, pharmaceuticals, banking, professional services, public service, automotive, transportation and semiconductors.

I hope that it will be an eye-opener for both the ones who are labeled “creative” as well as those who have enshrined their thoughts in the walls of analytical reasoning and rationality.

1.4 A Primer on Design Thinking

Before I describe the structured innovation process, it is important to give a quick overview of Design Thinking.

1.4.1 Traditional Approach

Before Design Thinking became mainstream for evaluating any business proposition, the two most important aspects that were taken into account traditionally by business executives were (1) viability, and (2) feasibility. That approach looked at the business benefits of a proposal (viability) and then evaluated whether it was doable (viability) in a financially practical manner (either through using resources of the organization or partnering with a player that could give them a speed advantage) in a timely fashion (feasibility). The initiative which ranked the highest on these two metrics was blessed with funding and kicked off. It seemed like a very reasonable way of solving problems. However, if you ask about the journey of any successful start-up, you’ll realize that not a single one followed that approach. They didn’t have the business value focus at the start of their venture. Nor did they have all the feasibility aspects figured out before kicking the project off. They had to go through tens and even hundreds of iterations before they could finally deliver enough value that was useful for their primary stakeholders/users. Even if you have an objective analysis of the effectiveness of that approach in established businesses, you will realize that almost all of the initiatives did not live up to their expectations.

Why did the business world continue to use that approach even if it wasn’t effective? There are several reasons:

1. Both viability and feasibility are based on futuristic projections based on subjective judgments that are, in turn, based on faulty assumptions of the sponsor. Any projections by nature are fictitious and do not take into consideration the variability induced through changing parameters. These parameters are both internal as well as external.

2. The approach follows waterfall methodology^* to plan for a long time, implement for an even longer time and then shove the solution down users’ throats. Spending a tremendous amount of resources in planning and presenting takes precedence over recognition of assumptions and testing for validation.

3. The approach is usually compartmentalized and uses silo-ed thinking. Different teams provide their inputs from their narrow perspectives. These teams include finance, R&D, marketing, sales and operations, and they fail to recognize the interdependencies of all these disciplines.

4. The approach takes time. It can be months or even years before key stakeholders see a solution. Requirements are consolidated in a spreadsheet where importance is given to the functional feature rather than the use by the user. The sponsor is fixated only on how to plan and create the corresponding features in the product to satisfy the list of requirements. This takes a long time, as all the kinks have to be straightened out on paper first so that each department can give its seal of approval before development can start. Once the scope is agreed upon, development is started, which again takes a silo-ed approach. In technology projects, the various teams work independently in building their capabilities, which are set forth in the specification document. These teams include infrastructure, database, application, user interface and integration. The final project, though it works, fails to satisfy the end users.

5. The approach is focused on “How” and “What,” but rarely addre...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• 1 Democratizing Entrepreneurship
• 2 The Three Stages Plus One
• 3 Stage 1: Understand Problem to Grasp Desirability
• 4 Stage 2: Devise Solution to Determine Feasibility
• 5 Stage 3: Craft Business to Know Viability
• 6 Stage 4: Manage Risk to Handle Uncertainty
• 7 Go Ahead and Transform Your Idea
• About the Author
• Index