Build Something Sturdy

One of the most challenging efforts an entrepreneur or intrapreneur can take on is building something new—or entering the space where something new is introduced to the world. It often seems fun, exciting, and entrepreneurial to have a fresh idea or project on the horizon. Yet, youthful exuberance needs to be balanced with a pragmatic understanding of the potential potholes. Many of these potholes remain invisible until you've hit one, and once you do, you can’t unsee it.

These are the core fundamentals required to build something sturdy:

Team: The process, resources, mindset, and idea can all be perfect, but the wrong team can lead to disastrous failure. Conversely, with the right team, even a mediocre process, limited resources, and a so-so idea stand a much better chance of success. The takeaway? Get the team right—first and always.

Process: Whether it’s a refined stage-gate, waterfall, or agile development process, having a clear method allows everyone to understand where the venture is headed. It also creates a common language to keep the project moving forward. However, never let process get in the way of progress.

Resources: Financial resources can be supplemented with passion, talent, and experience—to a point. No one should work for free, but many will work for less in exchange for the dream of building something greater. Balancing today’s hope with tomorrow’s reality is critical.

Mindset: Failure and mistakes are inevitable—hopefully, the smaller the better. An optimist is essential for driving momentum, but a pessimist is just as necessary to identify risks and challenges. A diversity of mindsets is key, or, as a humorous alternative, find a founder with multiple personalities!

Concept: The idea should make people nod with anticipation. Very few ideas are entirely new to the world; most are improvements or variations on existing concepts. Understand the marketplace to avoid blending into the sea of sameness, but don’t expect your idea to be 100% unique.

These fundamentals are listed in order of importance, yet people often spend far too much time on number five—the idea. Once you've seen the origin of a venture, its progress to launch, and its eventual success and adaptation, you realize the exhaustive refining of the initial idea seems almost irrelevant.

Beyond these fundamentals lie hidden methods and practices. These are harder to see, even if you've successfully launched something before. They are the practices of those who consistently succeed in bringing new ventures, products, offerings, or experiences to market.

Here are a few practices to consider when building something new and sturdy:

Ideas in Abundance: Even after landing on your core idea, it helps to ideate around it. The ratio of ideas to success can be ~ 1,000 to 1. If you’ve settled on one idea without considering many others, you’re either lucky or ignoring the odds. Pushing through 1,000 ideas improves your original by sheer rigor and association. Our advice: set aside the “great idea” and push for more.

Human-Centered Work: Unless robots are your customers, humans will always be involved. Understanding human needs, preferences, belief systems, and the competitive landscape they see will not only improve your idea but may also spark new ones. It builds empathy for your future customer, creates a human connection to the problem you're solving, and establishes advocates for your solution when you enter the market.

Seeing the Invisible: Often referred to as "white space research" or "finding the blue ocean," this involves identifying gaps in the marketplace where human behavior favors something new, and competitors are blind to the opportunity. Even in a crowded market (a "bloody ocean"), opportunities can exist. Interestingly, even after you've pointed out these invisible opportunities to investors, partners, or colleagues, they may still not see them—and that’s okay.

Creativity and Time: Finding product-market fit is a mix of creativity (problem-solving), refinement (problem-solving with constraints), and time. Financial resources extend time, but constraints drive creativity. In software development, agile practices push for getting a prototype to market as quickly as possible, starting the cycle of creativity, refinement, and time. Agile methods can be applied to all categories, promoting constant refinement, resource limitations, and time crunching.

Intangible Assets First: The intangible assets you build—such as patents, trademarks, and copyrights—often hold the most long-term value. The sooner these assets hit the marketplace, the sooner they begin gaining value. From patents leading to trademarks to building brand names, messaging, visual language, and designed experiences, these intangible assets become more valuable with time in the market. Having these top of mind or being built while achieving product/market fit will improve the value of your venture.

The risks of failure far outweigh the routes to success when building something new. This is why we've developed a portfolio of methods and practices to help navigate past these potholes, reducing the risk of failure in measurable ways.

No one can guarantee success, just as no one can guarantee a return on investment. Those who claim otherwise are modern-day snake oil salespeople. But you can reduce your risks and chart a course for a greater chance of success when bringing new ideas to market.