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Antler Founder Primer - Ideas Generation

This primer provides guidance to participants preparing to join the Antler full time accelerator program on generating ideas. It introduces a process for finding problems to solve that involves understanding the problem, framing it properly, researching it, and developing solutions. Good problems are painful, popular, frequent, urgent, growing, and unavoidable. Ideas can come organically from personal experiences or be deliberately thought up by considering opportunities in one's field of expertise or daily problems. Getting started involves making problem/idea thinking a habit, brainstorming problems daily, using design thinking, allowing ideas to gestate, and discussing with others.

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Shubh Chawda
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308 views7 pages

Antler Founder Primer - Ideas Generation

This primer provides guidance to participants preparing to join the Antler full time accelerator program on generating ideas. It introduces a process for finding problems to solve that involves understanding the problem, framing it properly, researching it, and developing solutions. Good problems are painful, popular, frequent, urgent, growing, and unavoidable. Ideas can come organically from personal experiences or be deliberately thought up by considering opportunities in one's field of expertise or daily problems. Getting started involves making problem/idea thinking a habit, brainstorming problems daily, using design thinking, allowing ideas to gestate, and discussing with others.

Uploaded by

Shubh Chawda
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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IDEAS GENERATION

ANTLER FOUNDER PRIMER


PREPARING FOR ANTLER:
GENERATING IDEAS

This primer we distribute to participants preparing to join the


Antler full time program. We introduce

• A process for finding problems to solve and ideas to work on


• Framing ideas as problems & problem characteristics
• How to get started
Start with the problem in mind
The right solution will come with consciously defining and framing
the problem. Truly understand the problem before the solution.
1. Problem 2. Motivation
Problem: What kind of problem is it? Is it popular, growing, urgent,
expensive, frequently occurring?

Motivation: What is your motivation behind the problem? How are you
personally attached to it?

Frame the problem: Best not to start with a solution until you
understand the problem. Are you sure you are solving the right 3. Frame the 4. Hypothesis test
problem? How do you know? Is it focused enough? Is it big enough? problem & sense check
Hypothesis test & sense check: What are the key hypothesis to test on
the problem? Is there a right to play in the industry structure? Is the
problem big enough?

Research: Are there other startups solving the same problems? How
have other companies failed or succeeded in that problem area? How
big is the market? Are there any major constraints to solving (regulation, 5. Research 6. Solution
natural monopolies)?

Solution: What are the ways you can solve this problem? Will it address
the whole problem or part of the problem? How is it commercial?
Problem sources & characteristics of good problems
PROBLEM SOURCES CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD PROBLEM

Application of old to new: Taking an existing product • Painful: So painful or expensive that users will pay a lot to
/ service and applying it to a new industry / vertical
solve it

White space: Genuine invention, the creation of • Popular: Millions of potential users
something entirely novel
• Frequent: Users run into the problem several times per day

Picks and shovels: Identifying a macro trend and • Urgent: Needs to be solved right now
creating goods or services that enable it
• Growing: Growing 20%+ per year

New geographies: Applying a successful idea from • Unavoidable: Problems you cannot avoid solving, e.g. due to
one geography and applying it in another
(new) regulation

Tinkering: Spotting a nagging problem and


developing a scalable solution to fix it
Idea generation approach
Ideally, you have a personal connection to the problem so you can tell if your solution solves the problem.

Startup ideas that occur organically are powerful. This is when you “notice” a problem that needs to be solved from your own
experience. Perhaps this is an epiphany or something that has been a burning issue for some time.

Deliberate startup ideas are ideas that are actively “thought up”.

Organic based startup ideas can be hard to orchestrate. Consider these questions to ponder:
• Are there obvious opportunities in your workplace? Broken processes, outdated technologies, unserved customers, fragmented
competitors?
• Are there business models that have not been applied to a field of your expertise?
• Are you at the leading edge of a rapidly changing field? How can you bring this to market?
• What are you working on that may seem like a toy/petty solution but may matter more to users than you think?
• What has been on your problem/ideas list for some time?

Some key questions on thinking of deliberate startup ideas:


• Are you in the habit of problem / idea thinking?
• What are the problems you experience every day?
• What are some unmet needs of others?
• Based research/reading, what failed or global start ups are you well positioned to launch in Australia?
Getting started
We have provided some useful tips to focus on consciously finding and framing problems.

How to get started:


• Begin the habit of problem / idea thinking
• Challenge yourself to brainstorm 3 new problems / ideas everyday – document in a dedicated
ideas journal (digital or physical)
• Incorporate processes of design thinking in your preparation to put yourself in the shoes of
others (we have included an article on design thinking in the resource list)

Read/ Research/ Reflect:


• What startups do not exist in Australia / have failed from other accelerators?
• What is at the nexus of your expertise and the next wave of innovation (autonomy, mixed
reality, crypto, AI)?
• What global force are you uniquely positioned to solve for the world, Australia, a tribe?
Demographic shifts, inequality, access to information, climate change, loneliness.

Allow problems and ideas to gestate prior to and during Antler:


• Discussion with others may result in an epiphany
• Dream big. What can you solve in a way that is 10x better than what exists? What white space
are you uniquely qualified to solve?

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