Idea

Objectives

- Pick an idea
- Make it clear & attractive
- Think about your user needs

How to Start

Run through the task list and familiarize yourself with the ideas.

For each task, set a timer. Read the task description, and then start the timer. Try to stay within the guidelines, but if you’re in the middle of working, keep working. (If you could email/tweet me the total time it took to complete each task, that would be really appreciated) If you need to take a break, take it before starting the next task. Try not to take a break or stop in the middle of a task.

If you think a task is not relevant to your current idea, skip it. You can always come back to it later.

Tasks

1. What is your idea? (4 minutes)
2. Give it a name. (2 minutes)
3. Why are you making this? (2 minutes)
4. What problem(s) does it solve? (4 minutes)
5. What features does your app need to solve those problems? (4 minutes)
6. Explain your app in 60 characters or less (2 minutes)

Tasks (with Instructions)

1. What is your idea? You may have several ideas and be wondering how to choose one.

Take 2 minutes: Write down all of your ideas as briefly as possible. Take 1 minute: For each idea, rate it on “how well do you know the problem you are trying to solve?”

“The easiest shortcut to building great products is not to think like your best customer but to be your best customer. Stop hypothesizing, and just build what you’d want built for yourself.”
Aaron Levie, CEO Box

Choose the problem you understand best.

Take the rest of your ideas and put them in an “icebox” (make a note somewhere that you can access easily). You’re not allowed to think about or work on those ideas until this one is done. This mental off-loading is very important.

2. What is your product called?

Take 2 minutes: Write up to 5 names down. Take 1 minute: Choose one.

Don’t worry about picking the perfect name, and don’t worry about availability right now. Use something easy to remember.

We’re not going to worry about things we can change later; an important thing to remember is that as we keep working on the project, we’ll have more ideas. We don’t want to get attached to a name, or idea, early on. Keeping an open mind and being open to listening to our users is a skill we want to constantly work on.

3. Why are you making this?

The ‘why’ informs your long term vision, which should inform all of your decisions moving forward. This is your north star. This is what makes you keep moving when you’re tired, unmotivated, want to do anything else in the world other than what you’re doing now.

Having a good answer will also help you craft a story around the project; this is important in motivating yourself, employees, partners, and selling your idea to cofounders, users, and investors.

I like to give myself an 18 month vision (that’s a good horizon, IME): “In 18 months, (answer from 2) will _”

4. What problem(s) does your app solve?

What jobs are your users trying to complete?

Here you want to be think about all of the issues that your users are facing around your app idea. What are the main outcomes they are looking for?

Try to think more generally, and also to focus in on smaller problems they are facing.

I like to use sticky notes for this, and to post them on a wall so that I can see them easily for the next step.

5. What features does your app need to solve those problems?

For each problem, think about the specific features that will solve that problem. What does the user need to be able to do with your app? Write down all of the features separately (again, using sticky notes is ideal).

6. Explain your app in 60 characters or less

This should describe the company vision to employees, and the value to potential customers. We want to be able to describe what we are trying to achieve quickly and clearly.

Outputs

- A name
- A short explanation of your app
- A feature list
- A list of the problems your users are trying to solve
- Your reason for doing this