Project Wilbur Podcast Episode 2: Conception of an Idea

John Emmons

Show notes:

In today's epsiode, Brian and John discussed how personal struggles can be the powerful force behind startup innovation. They shared their entrepreneurial experiences of turning personal challenges into successful business ventures beginning with the critical ideation phase.

The journey doesn’t end with an idea—it’s just getting started. John and Brian delve into the lean startup methodology, emphasizing the importance of customer feedback and the agility of launching with a minimal viable product. They navigate the often messy ideation process, balancing the merits of intuitive thinking with the meticulousness of strategic planning.

Whether you're a seasoned founder or a curious newbie in the startup ecosystem, this episode will provide you insights and practical advice to help you navigate the complexities of startup life.

In this episode, you will learn the following :

Process of ideation and recognizing viable startup concepts
Importance of identifying a personal problem for generating startup ideas
Significance of customer validation and iterative nature of developing a startup idea
Role of passion and adaptability in the startup journey
Availability of resources and support for individuals navigating the startup journey
Understanding the journey from ideation to a successful product in the market
Balancing social impact and financial success
Sharing experiences of making and losing money in the startup world

Resources Mentioned:

Jim Collins’ Great By Choice: https://www.jimcollins.com/books/great-by-choice.html

Eric Ries’ The Lean Startup: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10127019-the-lean-startup

Social media pages or website to promote:

Website: Project Wilbur

Instagram: instagram.com/projectwilbur

Youtube: Project Wilbur

Facebook: facebook.com/projectwilbur

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/projectwilbur

TRANSCRIPT

00:00:00 Brian: All right, everyone, welcome to the first episode in our four part series in which we'll be discussing the startup journey and how to go from idea to launch. Today, we'll be discussing the concept of an idea, the process of ideation, and recognizing viable startup concepts. At the end of the episode, we're gonna provide everybody with a couple of links to some great resources that'll help you in your journey. John Emmons, the co-host, fantastic guy. You have yourself been a part of what 10 startups now?

00:00:40 John: Yep. So 10 startups and, and counting.

00:00:46 Brian: Awesome. So when you talk about ideation, right, there's a moment in time when whatever we're doing in our daily life, that maybe we're working for someone else, maybe we're in a construction industry or working in a warehouse or tech company, doesn't matter where we're at. We're the ones that are doing something. We see a problem. We dream up something that'll make the problem better. How do you go from that spark of, hey, this is a good idea, to actually sitting down and forming that idea?

00:01:27 John: I think, I mean, in my experience, it's been more of finding a personal problem, something that you personally identify with, and then extrapolating for that. Right. So like if you're... I was at one startup and it was a Yelp competitor and we were trying to figure out how to get people engaged with local businesses and then to know... how do you know, you're always asking your friends, right? Like, where's the best restaurant or, oh, you got that purse where like, you know, your wife not me like I don't... Maybe I should....

00:02:10 Brian: Hey, you do you, buddy?

00:02:12 John: So but like, you know, you're oh, yeah, you're at a dinner party someone's like, oh, where'd you get that? Oh, yeah that new clothing store that's down on fifth or whatever. You know, it's all word-of-mouth and then this is like '07, so this is when word-of-mouth still... well, word about is still important.

00:02:31 Brian: And then more.

00:02:32 John: So the founders of this company were trying to solve that problem. And then they were also trying to address it's actually funny. The founder of that company. I swear he coined the term hyper local. Cause it was, it was before anybody really cared about hyper local. And, it was the startup was like a hybrid of like, though. God, I can't remember the name of the man.

00:03:03 Brian: Come on, come on, come on. We're all counting on you here.

00:03:05 John: Yeah, I know. It's terrible. Well, so it's like it's like if Yelp, eBay, WordPress, and what's the flash sale site like Zulily or something? If they all got together and had a baby. That's what this site was. But it was on flash. It was '07, and then the icon came out, and I was like, jobs like, hey, I hate flash. So we ended up selling our 2000 clients to a competitor. Right.

00:03:36 John: So exit number one, which is more of like a M&A event, right. Um, wasn't even acquihire cause we ended up all going somewhere else. But that came out of. I want to find cool stuff. Right. Each one of the startups that have been successful has been usually out of a personal problem. Very seldom is it like, you know, the founders not personally related to the thing, they're just trying to solve this interesting problem. Sometimes, I mean, it's like it happens, but it's more seldom.

00:04:09 Brian: Yeah, I would absolutely agree with that. You know, my after my first exit, it was construction industry, right? Small business, you know, took over a little piece of our local market. You know, here I am, young kid, got a little pile of cash, good at everything I do. Let's get a high yield investor checking account and savings account that also comes with a brokerage account. And so I dove in and this is, you know, literally right before 2008, dive into the markets, I go head first, not knowing at all what I'm doing, and then the market crashes and I lose a lot of it.

00:04:50 Brian: And so, that was a very big personal problem for me. So I totally agreed. And so I started figuring out like, why did this happen? Obviously I wasn't taught what, you know, in school what the markets are really all about, how money really works. And that was a very big problem to me. And so I set out on, you know, the financial journey of educating not just myself, but when I found a thing that actually worked, okay, now I have the solution. Now I can go, you know, build something around that solution.

00:05:26 Brian: So I would absolutely agree with you when you're saying it comes from a personal problem. You know, the place where those quality ideas are born. Some we all face personal challenge and then we start dreaming. So let's go from there and say, so there's two trains of thoughts, right? And I've been reading up on this topic a little bit here, preparing for today's podcast, but there's some people that, you know, wherefore, and I would put myself in this bucket. I'm a dreamer, I'm a creator, I grow things in my brain.

00:06:05 Brian: I will take something that somebody else is doing and just know what they should do to make it even bigger and better. And then there's some people that they actually sit down and have charts and spreadsheets and diagrams and there's actually an ideation process. Is there, do you think, I should ask maybe better way of asking, do you think it's better one way or the other?

00:06:30 Brian: Do you think they both have viable options? Do you think the one where it's more of a personal problem and touch and that spark of creativity that flies out of it is. Are you more passionate about that one so you'll care about it more and live it more versus if I sit down with a diagram, fill out some bubbles and draw a conclusion that this is a good idea?

00:06:56 John: For me, it's always passion. I can break down a couple of superpowers. One of them, a couple, meaning I'm a good dad. My wife thinks I'm okay. But on the business side, I could take any complex idea and make it as simple, like, you know, so a monkey or a small, like, rodent can understand what you're trying to communicate, right? Like, a whole different species. Like, you know, like...

00:07:23 Brian: You're very good at that.

00:07:24 John: You know things pretty well. So, in answer to your question, if for me to get involved, like, I wanted to stop what I'm doing and become a co-founder or something of that nature, it's because I believe exponentially that this is a needed thing, right? What we do as a company is try to get that passion out to everyone as clearly as we can and try to communicate that founder's passion. So when we're looking at an individual's story, their business, their mission statement, their go-to, right?

00:08:09 John: It's trying to break down what makes the most sense when they're talking to their potential customer, their client, their advocate, whoever, you know, investor, it doesn't matter, because it has to be clear, concise, and convey the passion that the founders intended.

00:08:33 Brian: So in the process of creating this idea, right, you have this moment, there's a spark. You say, Hey, I think this is sounds like a good idea. I want to research this more. So step one, that whatever triggers them, that thought in your head and step one, step two, it sounds like you start researching around that idea. Maybe talk to people who you might perceive to be early customers. Is that the step in the ideation process that you would take to understand. The third topic, which we'll get to in a little bit, not quite there yet, but recognizing if it's actually a viable startup.

00:09:17 John: Yeah. The ideation, the customer validation part where you're going around. It's always good to research, but until you start talking to the customer and figuring out what the customer wants, that's one, how you hone your pitch, two, how you identify the problem, three, how you verify whether someone will pay you for the solution that you're proposing. Right?

00:09:38 John: So if you can verify all three of those, then it's worth moving on to the next point. But the main thing that you need to do is document. Most people just go out and like, oh, I talked to two people and those two people told me they totally pay me for this. That's cool. But that's not a sample size.

00:09:57 Brian: Which, by the way, if you do that, don't let that be your family members because they're all gonna clap for you. Hey, Johnny, that's a great idea. I'll buy that. So talk to complete strangers.

00:10:09 John: Yeah, go to a busy street, go to where your customers are, go to coffee shops, randomly walk up to people. Because here's the thing, you might be an introvert, you might not wanna talk to people, you might be like, I don't wanna do this, it's scary. You shouldn't do a startup then. Because doing a startup means you have to be able to handle rejection. Like it's a gift. Like each time, each time you get a no, you should be like, thank you.

00:10:38 Brian: Thank you.

00:10:38 John: Thank you for the no, because the worst thing you can get is a maybe. Right. The worst thing you can get is, Oh, that's super cool. Yeah. Let me think about it. And then a year goes by and you still haven't heard from this person. Right. And you're like, I'm wasted so much time chasing this rabbit down the hole. And just don't do that. Just get that no.

00:10:58 Brian: When my wife used to hate me. When we made our mobile stock trading platform, when was that like? 2016, 2017, we'd be sitting at a restaurant, I would see a group of twenty something, sitting at a random table and I was the guy, I would walk up them. Hey, where we were, who they were, what was going on there in their middle of their evening. I just walk up and say excuse me. Sorry to interrupt you, this is what I'm doing. I wanna ask you a question. You guys cool with it?

00:11:30 Brian: And almost every single, yeah, of course, sometimes people are like, no, no, no, we're just having a good time. Okay, cool, you guys enjoy your night. You know, send them a little drink or something, you know, whatever, no harm, no foul. But most of the time they were very receptive to it, which is how we started getting some of that early data, which is how we started getting some of that word of mouth growth. You know, we had half a million pre-registrants before we launched any product. And I attribute a lot of that to just being out there and talking to people.

00:12:04 Brian: So that's how you validate, right? You have to validate that the idea is, you know, so if you look at it logically, right, there's an idea that is sparked from a problem. So if you're seeing a problem, you first have to go make sure other people view it as a problem, then, if you don't have the solution yet, then you go into the ideation process of the actual solution and you start brainstorming ideas on what might work. And then once you get those ideas on what might work, then you go, we're all fortunate enough to have the Google now. Go to Google, see if it already exists. Right.

00:12:45 John: And just to build off what you just said, sorry to cut you off. So like, if you go around and validate the problem, right. I mean, that's, I think you've heard me say it before, and I say it all the time, it's problem, solution, team, right? So like when you're fundraising, when you're selling something, it doesn't matter. It's those three things. So once you've identified a problem, a problem that people are willing to pay for a solution, the solution is never concrete, right? You have to iterate and adapt it because one guy will pay for one version of a solution and one lady might pay for a different version of the solution.

00:13:25 John: So you have to be able to iterate and figure out which version of your solution is the one that is your MVP, right? And then you have to be okay with iterating and changing. I've been at a lot of startups, and I would say five succeeded to exit, five failed, right? And I mean, some of them spectacularly. But part of the reason why the ones that failed, failed, I would say three of the five was because the founders didn't want to adapt to what the customer wanted. So that iteration is so important.

00:14:08 John: And that could be just a pricing structure that could go from like, hey, I just want lump sums up front to I want a small check every month. That can be a feature that needs to be added that removes friction in the onboarding. Like it doesn't matter what the feature is, but you have to be willing to adapt. I actually like, so engineers call it scrum and they do two weeks sprints and they do communication each day. I think sales benefit from a very similar effect.

00:14:43 John: And if you're iterating on a product and it's really just the business plan has nothing to do with the engineering and you go through and you're planning like, all right, here's the six different ways we think we can sell this. Let's try one a month for six months. Right. And whatever's set will gives us the best signal. That's what we pivot the whole company.

00:15:03 Brian: I love what you're saying here. This is, um, you know, it was a perfect, perfect segue into the third topic here, right, on how to recognize a viable startup. Right. And so at the end of this episode, we're going to give you some resources, one of them is a link to a great book, 'The Lean Startup.' It's one of the most important books. If you have an idea and you're set on this is a good idea, this is a real problem, I have the solution, this is a book you have to read.

00:15:41 Brian: And it addresses exactly what you're saying. And one of the biggest topics that I, or one of the biggest takeaways from that book for me was fail early and fail often. Most of the time as entrepreneurs, what we do is, and you know, most of us are not immune to this. And I wish I read this book before I started making the stock trading platform because one of the biggest things we do is we say, here's all the features of my solution that I know the world is gonna love.

00:16:13 Brian: How do we really know it? We don't, unless we actually give it to the world and let them tell us, right? So most importantly, if you think you have the right problem, the right solution, you're the right person to fix this problem, make the thing and have just two, three features of whatever you're building and put it out there and get the feedback.

00:16:37 Brian: Because most of the time, what you're gonna see is the thing that you thought was gonna be what everybody is excited about is not really what's drawing people to you, right? And you only learn that by doing. And in my opinion, that's the only way that as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, that you can understand if this is really a thing. You gotta do it, test it, right?

00:17:02 John: So just to build off of that, number one, totally agree. Number two, there's several really good, lean startups, good one. Leadership, good to greats. Another one. Jim Collins wrote another book called 'Great By Choice.' 'Great By Choice' is it talks about, what's called a rifle shot. Versus a cannon shot, right? And a rifle shot is test in tune. We're going to try out little things. And he uses the story of a Southwest and how Southwest like expanded during the 2008 chaos that took place. A financial crisis then and became a powerhouse that it is today. And that actually, funny enough, I got that book at a startup where the founder gave everybody that book.

00:17:59 Brian: Okay. And which by the way is a great thing to do as a founder, give all your people homework and books to read and sorry to interrupt there.

00:18:05 John: No, you're totally good. It's a good idea. But at the time, like I was super anti self-help books. I wasn't reading a lot of these books. That Great By Choice book led me to a hundred other books. And I read a couple like I love startup books and this was like I don't know 2011. So I read a few. I definitely like Scott Kupor wrote a cool book. He was one of the principals and GPS at Andreessen. And then venture deals.

00:18:37 John: There's another one. Anyway, so the point is that that one book that was well written by Jim Collins led to a different perspective. So and my point with this rambling is being open to change is probably the best thing that you can do. Because if you're closed minded and not willing to take in data, your company is going to fail. Your endeavors will fail.

00:19:06 Brian: Well, that's going to be a whole other podcast topic, but that's absolutely one of the things that we look at as investors, as people who vet deals for investors. If you are not coachable and open to being wrong, you're not investable. So I think that goes into part. It's a whole ecosystem of emotions that go through the entrepreneur, right?

00:19:33 Brian: There's two trains of thoughts. I know some investors where they're like, dude, my CEOs, they have this has to be their baby. And there's another train of thought where they're like, if this is your baby, I am not touching this because you are not gonna flick off your baby if it's not working. You're gonna ride that thing for 10 years and grind it out and make nothing of it. So, you know, in my opinion, there's no right or wrong way of doing it.

00:20:03 Brian: But I think all of those answers come from, you know, step three in this process where you're recognizing if what your solution is, is actually viable, right? If you're putting it out there, you're testing, you're talking to people and the answers keep coming back like, yeah, that's a problem, but I don't know if I would, you know, that I don't think I would use that.

00:20:29 Brian: You've got such an uphill battle. The data don't go with your heart all the time in the business world, go with your data, right? The heart will lead you to the right places, but data will tell you if it's right or not.

00:20:46 John: Well, and just to build off of that, right? The heart's the spark, right? So like that's step one, like, do I care enough about this to actually devote time? And then the data validates the time that you spend, right? So just keep that in mind. Like as you're as you're chasing each one of these idea rabbits, if you will, down a hole. Right. You've really got to evaluate the path down and whether it's worth the journey. But it's always good to chase the rabbit.

00:21:19 Brian: It is, it is, right. And so I mean, this is, you know, we could talk forever on the steps it takes and how to properly go about starting a business, going from idea to a public listing. And we'll be doing that over the next several months in this series. But for this episode here, just to kind of circle back and tidy things up here. You know, when you have that problem, that thing you're seeing in your life, right, that personal impactful thing that has happened to you and you have that spark.

00:22:00 Brian: You know, there's several resources out there, you know, whether it's some of the books that, you know, we'll put a bunch of links down in everything and in the comments and all the blog posts and everything. Feel free to take a look at those. There's several of them out there. But if you're still stuck, right, and you're like, okay, I'm reading these books. I just I don't know how like there's tons of groups out there.

00:22:24 Brian: Feel free to reach out to us anytime and we can help steer you in the right direction. I guess what I'm trying to say is the startup community, and I don't think this is a regional type of thing like it used to be. Bay Area was always a hub of startup activity. People cared about each other. They tried to help each other grow. I think that's really how the entire country is now. So wherever you're at, whatever you're doing, there's people around you that might be looking at the same thing and will probably love to help you on your journey, right?

00:23:05 John: Now key takeaways are we mentioned a bunch of stuff, we'll have like links to resources that we didn't mention potentially in there, but we just didn't have time to get to everything. So that's just point one and that'll be consistent with each one of our podcasts and. You know, the main thing to take away with each one of these is stuff. It's stuff that we use, right? It's stuff that we recommend. It's it's books that we've read. It's it's tools and resources that we recommend to even, you know, our clients or anybody else that is a good fit.

00:23:41 Brian: It's interesting. We're talking about this and sorry to cut you off there, but it I just got to throw this out there and give her a little plug because it made me so proud. But literally yesterday and John, you were with me. We were on a flight and my wife texted me and said, I have this idea for a business. And I said, I've got a podcast you should listen to. I love it.

00:24:06 John: There you go. Awesome. Well, cool man. Thanks for the time, Brian.

00:24:11 Brian: Yeah, buddy. Awesome everybody. Thanks for tuning in. Next week's episode will be another banger in this series. And the goal for us personally is if you start with this episode here by the end of our entire series, you will have a great understanding of how to take your idea all the way through to actually a working product in the market making money with it. Because at the end of the day we all want to do good and we have a philosophy in our personal groups where we lead with the good so we're not going to do something that doesn't have a social impact of some type that is doing good for people.

00:24:56 Brian: But, you know, at the end of the day, we're here to make money. And we want you to make money. And you know, we've been through the ringer, we've made money, we've lost money, we've made more money, we've seen businesses, you know, work and fail. And, you know, we want to help you avoid the losing money part as best as we can. So..

00:25:13 John: 100% like, you know, each and every journey, it has steps and fumbles and you climb up a hill and you fall down as you go. And as long as you keep picking yourself up, back up, it's it's it makes it worth it. Right.

00:25:26 Brian: Yeah. Absolutely. Awesome. Well, on that note, we'll leave this episode there. Thanks, everybody, for listening. Thanks, John. And we'll see you guys later.

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