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Zachary Aldwin Milkshake in the Boardroom
According to Paul Graham, founder of startup incubator Y-Combination: “The very best startup ideas tend to have three things in common: they’re something the founders themselves want, that they themselves can build, and that few others realise are worth doing.”

Everyone is looking for an idea that will catapult them to fame, riches and the easy life. Well maybe not everyone. For a start “riche, fame and the easy life” is a dreadful motivator. Seeking an idea just because it will make you famous is a bad idea generator. You are more likely to succeed by trying to solve a problem that you are having, or that someone else close to you is having. Do you remember the days when airtime was only available at outlets and no one sold it on the street?

Someone was driving, ran out of airtime and thought “I wish I could buy airtime right here”. There was a personal problem, a solution that manifested itself and now we all benefit.

When the problem is personal we are more likely to be driven to find the solution. Not only that we feel ownership of what we have created.

According to Graham, one of the biggest mistakes people make is trying to solve a problem that does not really exist. If you have your own problem, well then it is more likely to be a real problem.

There is a reason that no one distributes eggs through vendors at traffic lights; it is just not a real problem for people who eat eggs. I do not drive through Harare thinking: “You know what I need right now, I need a raw egg, I wish I could have one and put it on the seat next to me.”

So you could create a traffic-light-vendor- based, egg distribution network – it will probably last just long enough for the first batch to go bad.

Now a door-to-door, internet-based (with phone back-up for bad internet days) distribution network may have a shot if you target busy people who do not like to do their own shopping.

Bottom line here is that people need to use your stuff or you are wasting your time.

Targeting the right people is important if you are aiming for a startup. Initially you want the buy in from a select group of people (the guys looking for the solution), that niche becomes your sneezers who use your product, tell others and enable you to scale out.

Scaling, while we are on the topic, is up to you really. There are some ideas that have the potential to hit a global scale easily; Google for example. Others less so; take a doctor’s practice for example that develops a revolutionary way of processing their clients.

There are only so many people you can see a day, to see more requires extra staff, and then to get the buy-in required to take your style of practice around a city, never mind nationally makes it hard to scale.

Not impossible, just harder. If you are happy not to scale, that is your call, and there is nothing wrong with that.

How do you notice at potential problem? Well that is the keyword, you need to notice. Too many people, in fact most people, dribble along through life never noticing things that could be improved on.

If something disturbs them enough then they may complain, but not take the next step which is “what if I solved it”, then not just come up with a solution but actually implement it.

Take the iPhone; everyone had begun carrying multiple gadgets – a cellphone, an MP3 player. It took someone to ask “why can’t we just carry one” and then make it happen. It helps if you can build the solution, or at the very least facilitate its production.

That takes you from noticing to implementing. One paragraph does not really encompass how this process works or how long it may take. But step one is to notice things around you.

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