Stage 1 - Idea Discovery

1.1 Goal

The goal at this stage is to come up with a good idea and be ready to move in phase 2 of product development.

 

To evaluate your idea check Good Idea Checklist (GIC) and Org/Team Readiness Checklist (ORC)

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Checkout GIC and ORC  for non-profit organisations and for profit organisations.

 

1.2 Timeline

45 days, 2 people

 

1.3 Idea Discovery Process:

 

1. Evaluate current idea against GIC, If it is good, move to ORC

2. If not good, then pick a broad area and map its value chain.

3. Identify a problem area from the value chain mapping. Deeply understand a problem area and develop an idea to solve, which may fit the GIC. Stress test the idea against GIC.

4. If the idea looks strong, move to ORC. If not, go back to Step 2 or 3.

 

Value Chain mapping: 

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Any area/broad task has a number of sequential + parallel activities that get done to accomplish the goals. Value chain mapping is the process of:

1. Identifying all of these tasks

2. Segmenting them by audience

3. identifying what is solved in each, what is unsolved, friction points, and value drivers.

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Subsequently one maps solutions to make one or more of these tasks efficient and tests the solutions against GIC.

 

1.4 ACE Process

Agents of Change Entrepreneurs (ACE) is a fully-funded six-month accelerator  program for idea-stage entrepreneurs seeking to solve hard problems. Know more

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1. 6-month intensive startup founder program for co-located learning & community.

2. Weekly founder meetings for progress updates and planning. (we host atleast 1 office hour per week per team throughout the program)

3. Bi-weekly expert sessions for founder guidance, network building, and growth strategies.

4. Curated readings & resources are shared with the teams and discussed within the cohort

5. Help with co-founder search and formation of core team.

6. Helping connect with potential users for interviews and proper problem understanding.

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1.5 Readings

• Startup Advice

  • How to get startup ideas

  • JTBD Framework (Build products that solve real problems)

  • Relentlessly resourceful by Paul Graham

• Founder Stories

  • Retools path to product market fit 

  • Futurepreneurs book- GreyOrange: Bots that fulfill your eCommerce orders 

  • Futurepreneurs book-  SocialCops: Complaints to Data Transformers 

  • Bintis path to product market fit 

  • Canva’s Journey: Highs and lows lessons learned during canva

• Diagnosing Markets

  • ​Zetwork: Zetwork goes from marketplace to manufacturer

• Minimum Viable Product

  • The Minimum Viable Testing Process for Evaluating Startup Ideas​

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Now that you are through with phase 1. Checkout the next steps of building your startup in phase 2.