Any startup begins with an idea, but which one is the right one? It starts when someone has an idea of an exclusive product that would conquer the world. Someone faces an outstanding problem and believes that finding a way to solve it will lead to a success. And someone else can think in terms of demand and identifies the target audience first, but this rarely happens.
Let’s use the model of Petri Lehmuskoski, a Finnish entrepreneur and a business-angel who has nurtured a large number of successful projects. In his article “We need to change the way we build startups!” he mentions a specific model to follow.
P – Problem
S – Solution
С – Customer
Mr. Lehmuskoski identifies three possible scenarios.
The basis and beginning of a startup is the idea of a solution, which could be a beautiful, elegant, working product, device or service. If a solution is developed only for the sake for a solution, then there’s the question, “Is there an actual problem that needs this solution?” Even if you find that the problem can be solved this way, you won’t be successful if such a problem pertains only to a narrow range of customers.
In this case the next stage would completely undermine the success of the previous one.
Here you should first start by searching for a problem that requires a solution. Finding the idea becomes the driver of the startup. If having found the best solution ever you realize that the problem is not as critical for the customer as you thought it would be, you’re again at risk of losing it all.
Thus, the sequence of the first two stages seems to be logical, but the third stage can undermine everything achieved so far.
According to Petri Lehmuskoski, this is exactly the development sequence of an idea and project, which in most cases leads the startup to success. Having identified the target audience and problems it has, it’s quite easy to guarantee a successful solution to the problem will be in high demand in the market. No one knows if this solution will become successful though, but any attempt would be worth making.
Obviously, the first option is more typical for an inventor, pioneer, or technological genius. The latter option is more suited for a tough-minded marketing specialist or economist and most likely neither will become successful on their own.
Success is a combination of an idea, team and competent development of the project, and, certainly, luck.
Read Petri Lehmuskoski’s original article here.
