bootstrapyourbusinessblog

To become an entrepreneur you should first start with a business idea. If you want your business to be sustainable over time, your business idea has to be based on social values, adequate use of natural resources, respect for human resources, the environment and every living being. Besides, if your business idea solves some problems or satisfies any necessity in the society, you can be sure that there will be a market for the solution you offer. 

While it is true that we all have skills in certain areas, the most important thing to succeed as an entrepreneur is to analyze, how we can put these skills into the service of others. On the other hand, you should be careful with the thought, that if you like this business idea, then others will like it too. Typical error ⚠! In that case, you would be creating a business just for you, without taking into account the opinion of your potential customers. 

There are many different ways to bootstrap a business idea and all of them can guide you to success. In this blog, I will talk about one way that I consider well structured and easy to follow. The first step is to define on which sector you would like to focus. This can be production, finance, service, design, health, education and so on… The second step is to look for a problem that has not been solved, such as a constant complaint by the client that has not been addressed, a complex process or an experience that you would like to redesign in that sector. Remember, that you should first focus on the problem and not on the solution. This is especially true, if you still don’t have a clear understanding about the problems and needs that people are looking for to be satisfied. Here you have a template that can give you an idea of how to do it:

Choose a current experience, process, service or product that you would like to redesign or improve. The third step is to decide, on which group of people you would like to focus. They can be customers, employees, companies and so on. The fourth step is to analyze, how this group of people interacts with this current experience, process, service or product.

How to analyze the interaction of people with a product or service?

There are different types of tools that can help you to define in a more precise way, how people interact with a current product, service or experience, that you want to redesign:

1. Observation: Observing reactions, what people like or dislike, what frustrates them, what consumes a lot of time for them, what they would change or stop of that experience (2).
2. Research: There are many articles that might talk about the same topic that you are interested in. There are studies that might prove that there is indeed a problem that has not been solved. The Internet is a powerful tool that can provide you with tons of information, customer comments, analysis, thesis that talk about the same topic, etc. 
3. Surveys: There are many tools in the internet that can be used to make surveys, such as Google forms, Facebook surveys, among others.
4. Interviews or Focus Group: The biggest advantage of interviews is, that the interviewer can notice the reactions of the interviewed. Besides, the people feel more comfortable to share their feelings when they have face to face conversations. The best way is to start with open questions and to end up with closed questions (3).

As Yin Lei says in the video of Board of Innovation, these tools do not have a linear process, but cyclic. They are repeated and updated until the real problem or need is found. In the first round of investigation you may have valuable information; however, you should test it in the second round to make sure that this is really a common problem and not simply an opinion or feeling of a small group of people.

What to analyze when applying these tools?

You must analyze the most complex moments of a process, the facial expressions during the use of a product or service, how much work people have, to execute a certain activity, the stages that people would like to skip in a process or service, the moments that produce tension, frustration, surprises, etc. All these reactions speak for themselves and are opportunities to improve.

Example of innovative business ideas:

It´s business model is to prepare the necessary ingredients for a meal and then deliver them  to customers, who must cook  the meal using recipe cards, which takes between 30 and 40 minutes (4).

1. Sector: Food
2. Problem: What should I cook and how do I get the ingredients without losing a lot of time?
3. User: Busy people, who value healthy, homemade food, but don’t have the time for research or food shopping.
4. Interaction: Difficulty to decide on recipe, losing time to buy groceries, not finding some ingredients are frustrating situations that most people have experienced before. HelloFresh has identified these issues as an opportunity for improvement. 

It operates a customer-centered platform approach that claims to become “the starting point for fashion” in Europe. It currently offers more than 300,000 products from almost 2,000 different brands in Fashion and Lifestyle (5).

1. Sector: E-commerce
2. Problem: How can I buy shoes in a fast and convenient way?
3. User: People who want to avoid the traditional way of shopping.
4. Interaction: In this case, the interaction should be separated because there are two different experiences:

Classic shopping in a mall/local retailer: Local retailers in rural areas might have a too limited variety of shoes or they do not provide the desired style, while big city malls might be too far away or overcrowded. Online shops are offering an interesting alternative, especially for rural communities.

Other online shopping platforms: By their nature, online shops can not provide the service to “try out” new shoes or clothes. Therefore, it happens frequently that an ordered item does not fit the customer or looks different than expected. Also, people had to wait a long time for shoes they bought online. Because of this issue, Zalando began with a policy of free deliveries and returns and an improved logistics process for faster deliveries (6).

It is a platform software that offers accommodation, with the difference that it is not a hotel, but a home of someone who may or may not live there. The hosts can publish their properties on this platform and make them available to interested parties (7).

1. Sector: Real Estate/Tourism.
2. Problem: Two young people noticed that all hotel rooms in New York city were booked, as the local Industrial Design conference attracted many visitors.
3. User: Travelers who are looking for more affordable accommodations than hotels.
4. Interaction: Apart from a few Bed and Breakfasts, Hotels were the most common accommodation for travelers to stay. However, their capacity can be limited, especially in popular areas like city centers or beach areas and on special occasion. Furthermore, they are usually standardized and might not be the best solution for everybody. For example: large groups tend to have a hard time to find a convenient Hotel room that is also affordable. Because of AirBnB, private rooms, apartments, homes and so on can be rented by travelers, giving them usually more affordable prices and also a more individual solution to their needs as travelers (8).

All these business ideas were born from a need, that was not being satisfied by traditional businesses. It shows: where there is a need, there is a business opportunity!

References:

1. Board of Innovation is a consultancy company, headquartered in Belgium. They empower other companies to innovate. Therefore, they have developed many free business tools to promote innovation. https://www.boardofinnovation.com/
2. https://www.boardofinnovation.com/tools/customer-journey-map/
3. https://www.boardofinnovation.com/tools/problem-validation-script/
4. https://www.hellofreshgroup.com/websites/hellofresh/English/140/our-story.html
5. https://corporate.zalando.com/en/company/company-profile
6. https://www.handelsblatt.com/today/companies/e-commerce-zalandos-fashion-empire/23581300.html?ticket=ST-769762-bP1Dr4gteIYaEJf6Dl5a-ap1
7. https://www.entornoturistico.com/que-es-airbnb-y-como-funciona/
8. https://getpaidforyourpad.com/blog/the-airbnb-founder-story/