How I think about ideas

That’s why there should be not only one win option, but a large list of possible solutions

In my experience, the best approach to an idea is not to define the client’s abstract problem, but to define WHY I want to do something in simpler language

"Many people like to wear things that are not like others wear"

"Most people eat at home but don’t like to wash dishes after themselves"

"Many people would like to keep fit, but they don’t have the patience to go to a fitness club regularly"

"It is not convenient for people who travel around the city during the day to meet the courier at the specified address at an incomprehensible period of time"

The solution to each of the problems can be a whole list of different options. This is the key to increasing the number of hypotheses and attempts.

We should try different ways until we find one that works

Moreover, there is usually no equality between the phrases "what we do" and "what people buy". Based on the well-known phrase of Philip Kotler "people don’t buy a drill, they buy a hole in the wall" the sooner we start not to develop a platform, but to sell to customers, the sooner we will get the answers we need.

Before talking about product/market fit, it’s better to achieve product/channel fit first. And the next step is to forecast and calculate it in excel before putting any $ into the ads.

Market x Ads x Converter x Sales x Finance = Profit

Market = how many people and how much $ they’re spending right now per year for existing problem solution options (our direct and indirect competitors)?

Ads = in which channels and how much of that people we can reach using variety of marketing channels and how much clicks would we take from ads?

Converter = how much leads would we take from clicks?

Sales = how much sales would make our sales department from these amount of leads?

Finance = how much money would we earn from sales and how much would be our tax an operational costs?

Profit = how much would be the profit after paying for all costs?

This way we can find the key optimization points in the formula. These are always conversions between stages in the funnel.

Our advertising should be everywhere

If the market grows at a rate above 30% per year, it doubles every few years, so many new customers come to it.

If the market is growing at a rate of less than 30% per year, or even falling, then the only strategy should be to take customers from competitors. To do this, you need to be 2−10 times better in terms of criteria that are important for the consumer.

Need to lure customers from competitors

step 1:
not only option but it’s better to go to the market without leaders

step 2:
act different from others in marketing and sales

step 3:
in order not to be afraid of copying by competitors, you need to become a separate category for buyers

*Book "7 powers the foundations of business strategy". Author Hamilton Helmer

• Exclusive resources and talents
• Counter-positioning

Startup usually has only 2 available at the beginning

1. Brand
2. Switching cost to analogues
3. Exclusive resources and talents
4. Network economies
5. Scale Economies
6. Counter-positioning
7. Process power

7 unfair advantages*