HOW TO FIND GOOD STARTUP IDEAS

@PSturrock

Cultivate Curiosity

➡Get your head out of your screen➡Change your routine➡Turn up!➡Carry your pencil➡Make lists➡Take Pictures➡Sketch➡Eavesdrop➡Ask for stories

“If I had an hour to solve a

problem I'd spend 55 minutes

thinking about the problem

and 5 minutes thinking about

solutions.”

What is a good problem?

“We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters”- Peter Thiel

Wicked Problems

1. Multiple stakeholders: can’t be clearly defined.

2. Multidimensional

3. No boundaries

4. Any solution is partial and temporary

GOOD PROBLEMS1.Important 2.Protagonist 3.Boundaries 4.Endpoint 5.Actionable

Interpretive Innovation

Lester, R.K. & Piore, M.J. (2006) Innovation: The Missing Dimension, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press

Analytic Innovation

Vague problem

Fuzzy goals

Unknown solution

Ongoing

Conversational

Where do I find a good problem?

THE ADJACENT POSSIBLE

Cultivate Curiosity

➡Get your head out of your screen➡Change your routine➡Turn up!➡Carry your pencil➡Make lists➡Take Pictures➡Sketch➡Eavesdrop➡Ask for stories

Photo Credit: www.flickr.com VinothChandar creativecommons.org

Look with Beginner’s Mind

“at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”

John Keats

Negative Capability

Epistemic Curiosity

G E T O U T O F T H E B U I L D I N G !

from Alan Klements

GOOD PROBLEMS1.Important 2.Protagonist 3.Boundaries 4.Endpoint 5.Actionable

Questions?

Thank You

@PSturrock