Idea Generation Frameworks 1 - Value: what the customer gets
2 - Price: what they pay
3 - Cost: what it costs you
where you can you find 1 > 2 > 3
Painkillers vs Vitamins
- your product becomes much easier to buy when it's a painkiller
Win-win scenarios
- best products create a win-win for both you and ur users
- if ur app helps to generate an extra $500 in profit a month and your app costs $50/month it's a clear reason why they shoud pay for your product
- or if your app saves a user 10 hours a month and this person's per hour time is worth $100 per hour worth $1000 in savings
Start with the problem first
- dont miss the pain point you are trying to solve
- solution must be pulled from the problem
- this will allow you to create a product that truly resonates and addresses the core pain point
Problem v Solution Example
- time mgmt app is trying to get more users to check in and track their time
- solution-first: let's send push notifs to remind them to check in every 25-minute block
- problem-first: people are getting distracted by their phones so they can't stay on task
Dont kill your ideas
- this hurts the creativity process
- it's so easy to say this wont work and there is no target market for this
- when youre in the idea-generation stage - write it down and save it for later
Idea Generation Techniques Are there problems that you experience in your life that need solving? you might not be the only one you’ll be able to understand the problem deeply, letting you build the right features Translating an Existing Idea to a New Niche what tools are popular in one niche but underserved in another? you can also take a general tool and niche it down set it up to target a specific market with only the features that they need Enter a Large Space with Hated Competitors a lot of large companies have poor service and bad products they either have great sales teams or have been around for a long time fast-moving startups with great UX, pricing and support can take away market share Look at Ways You Spend Money on Your Day Job what other SaaS tools your company paying for? where are the spending a lot of money? is there a set of features that you could take and create a more targeted product? Unique Insight or Experience this one is trickier but still valid have you observed or done something nobody else has? can you bring something from one market to another market? or one location to another example: Brian Chesky - insight that people wanted to rent part of their homes every day you’re going to write down 10 ideas pick a niche or a problem area and write down 10 ideas for products getting to 10 will force you to stretch your creativity eventually, you will have a huge idea list to pick from Choosing a Niche and Audience niche → a market segment where certain products and services are in demand. niche markets can cater to geographic locations, cultures, occassions or activities
why niche down?
your targeting becomes clearer, letting you create a target persona or avatar you’ll know where to find them and which organic content to create you can always expand to other markets later classic example: Amazon with books narrowing down your niche
calendar booking tool for appointments where you can prepay calendar booking tool for plumbers where you can prepay calendar booking tool for plumber companies with 10+ plumbers where you can prepay niche considerations
is the audience large enough? the balance between too big and too small if there are only 10 people who can pay 19.99 a month for your app you’re going to have a hard time does your niche have money? are they able to afford what you are offering? for example, is it restaurants with low margin or are they SaaS founders with high margins You Don’t Need to Change the World if you read it’s all about amazing founders generating dollars from a young age these are founders who are going to “change everything” your idea doesnt need to change the world, you dont need to be a massive company like Facebook with its 2.96 billion users and over 100 billion dollars a year in revenue These are the exceptions. 99.99% of biz will never get to billions → find your audience, find true fans which will support you
Cherry Pick Ideas from Communities the concept of pulling your product ideas from communities by joining, researching and speaking with community members Should you build B2B or B2C? faster sales cycles as individual consumers often have a shorter decision-making process a wider potential audience as consumers are more numerous than businesses easier to acquire customers, as there are many channels available for consumer marketing smaller revenue potential per customer, more price sensitive higher churn rates, as individual consumers may be more likely to switch to competitor products more intense competition, as the amrket for consumer products, is often crowded hard to charge money (e.g. look at freemium apps) can charge more for products businesses can justify the expense better the pain points are typically stronger there can be longer sales cycles as businesses often have more decision-makers and require more approvals before making purchases higher customer acquisition costs due to the need for targeted marketing and sales efforts go B2B, it is so much easier to charge a premium as a business can justify the cost there are plenty of small businesses that wont require long sales cycles or approvals if you can make business $500/month you should have no issue charging them $100/month would you rather have 100K paying you $1/month or 1000 customers paying you $100/month? it is such much easier to acquire a smaller number of customers 
Idea Generation