Choosing a business direction or how to win holivar

So, the decision to do his own business was made and approved by the habrasoobshchestvo, for which he thanks a lot! Obviously, first of all it is necessary to understand what I will do. The decision is serious - fateful. Recall the same epic anecdote:

There are two friends:
- How are you?
- Why, he founded a new startup, we are growing very fast, we are developing.
- Cool! And what is the essence of a startup?
- I conducted a market research and decided to open a public house.
- Wow, interesting, and what prices?
- Anal - $ 100, screaming - $ 50.
- A classic sex?
- You see, this is a startup. In general, while I work alone ...

I also work alone and I also have a startup, so you have to be extremely careful and vigilant when making decisions.
In this post I will illustrate the decision making process. For the process to be the most obvious, I’ll mentally face my personal virtual apologist for each idea, and I will decide on this whole confusion of ideas. At the same time I will show you how to calm down such horde, with which the meeting rooms in many large organizations are filled with, and set it up in a constructive way. So:

How does a business start?

If the homeland begins in the pictures in your primer, then the business begins with the problem. Not problems of lack of money or problems with the law, but of some obvious or implicit problem that has matured within the framework of a given spirit of the time and cultural values. For example, when an ancient businessman-gatherer got tired of carrying everything he had collected on his back, he started his wheel manufacturing business. If he had thought up the wheel long before that, when there was no problem of dragging large loads, because people had not guessed to make stocks, his business would not have taken off, because there was no problem. And then such a success - Google is resting.

Explicit and implicit problems

When thinking about a problem that is promising for a business, you should remember that true problems are rarely on the surface. People are inherently conservative - having studied some technology, procedure or method, they consider this a natural state of affairs, and are ready to repeat their actions from time to time, without thinking that the same result can be achieved in a more efficient and easy way.
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Robert Sheckley’s “The Right Question” tells us that in order to properly ask a question you need to know most of the answer. Accordingly, often in order to see the problem, you need to see a solution. It is on this that the success of the business is based - if you saw the problem and solved it, your users, taking advantage of your solution, will also see this problem, and will not be able to live without your solution, meanwhile, before that, they calmly managed without it, considering this state of affairs for the norm.

Lift is a problem

For example, take the usual phenomenon in everyday life - an elevator in a residential building. Is there a problem with the current solution? Let's forget that it spoils, and that it sometimes stinks. A fully functional and beautiful elevator - is there a problem with it? At first glance, it seems not. I went in, pressed a button and went - what is easier? Where further to simplify? If we consider the only act of using the elevator, then there is no place. But in the modern world, the main number of problems rests just on repetition . When entering the elevator, 99.9% of passengers push the same button because they are going to the same floor - to their home. In the future, the repetition of the same action is a problem - a person is forced to perform routine work, so what, the smallest. And if he is mistaken? And if he came drunk, and the buttons blur before my eyes? And if you broke your arm and nothing to press? If your hands are busy? And if the blind? Unnecessary work is always problematic. How to solve this problem? There are many decisions. The simplest thing is to introduce the passenger identification in the elevator and memorize the buttons that he had already pressed. When re-entering reuse this information. Just enter the elevator and he drives you home.

Not only the elevator is the problem

I'm not going to automate the elevators. I just wanted to show how many in this world there are obvious and implicit problems that are just waiting for someone to bring them to the light of day, decide, and make a successful business. Choose - I do not want. Moreover, there are often problems even in other people's solutions to problems. Often, someone discovers a problem and solves it wrong, sim doing us a good deed - by finding the problem, but not providing a solution. These good Samaritans are called competitors. Competitors do not have to be afraid, they must be loved for their kindness.

All problems problem

I need to find the most urgent problem that I can solve best of all. Yes, and so that this decision was where to develop, because the potential for growth is a very important criterion when evaluating a company.
The ideal decision making process should go through the following two stages:

1. Fantasy
2. Ranging

Fantasy

At this stage, the criticism is completely turned off. The brain is in the mode of unrestrained and gambling creativity. Nafig brakes - we generate and record everything that only fits into the head. This stage can be carried out both alone and in team brainstorming. It’s just easier to do it alone - don’t be shy of those nonsense things that often go to your head. But I'm not out of shyness - I will spend it in front of a habocommunity.

Ranging

Having collected a sufficient number of ideas, it is necessary to choose the best of them. This is where the difficulties begin, especially if more than one ego is involved in the selection process. That is why this stage should be clearly separated from the creative process, so as not to miss the treasures of creative thought in the rubble of human pride. There are many ways to choose the best idea, starting from dictatorial authoritative opinion and ending with a stupid vote (the stupidest strategy, in my opinion). Personally, I want to share a successful way, tested on living people in combat conditions.

Table ranking

When choosing the best idea, it is necessary to draw its advantages from each idea, write them out in the columns of the table (perhaps, having weakened the wording so that they are applicable to other ideas) and begin to evaluate other ideas in the perspective of their own and others' advantages. This approach implements the replacement of the concept of disadvantages with advantages. Needless to say, the idea has flaws, you just have to say that by this virtue it is inferior to everyone else. And express it in numbers. Then no one will be offended. Even the worst. That's the whole theory.

Hunt for problems

So, the problem hunting season is announced open. I will shoot at everything that is supported as a problem - whether I like it or not. Sort later. There are no extra ideas. I'll write out a few problems that I managed to notice during my short life. I will describe the essence, and why this problem seems to me relevant, and from the descriptions I will make a table when ranking. In order not to run through the same problems twice, I’ll enter and evaluate potential solutions on the spot.

1. How to make out the notes of the melody you like?

I met this problem a long time ago, when I was just learning to play the piano and guitar. Sometimes you want to play your favorite melody, but you don't know the notes. Absolute rumor is not given to everyone, so it would be cool to be able to develop this most absolute rumor, or let the computer or the Internet listen to the melody, and he would roll out the notes.

While I was thinking about this problem, a lot of online resources appeared, where the notes of most popular melodies and compositions are laid out. Technologically, the problem of reverse engineering melodies may have remained relevant, but the applicability of this for the meager amount of unpopular melodies reduces the business value of the problem to nothing. We celebrate. Although no, let's rank it.

2. How less time and nerves to spend on Moscow traffic jams?

I myself did not suffer from this, because I lived within walking distance from work, but I saw many colleagues spending from an hour to three on the road. Well this is how much gas, nerves and money should go on this pleasure. If you solve this problem, you can earn good money.

There are several solutions, and the solution is complex. You can employ people closer to home, find them a remote place with the same salary, offer to start a business or try to unload the roads. For example, to organize a carpool service, seating drivers, traveling alone by car, into each other's cars. While I was thinking about this and being shy, the homeless dude over the hill learned how to code and wrote such a service for the States. And we can for Moscow.

3. How to raise motivation in a large organization?

From this problem, actually, my desire to go into my business and solve it once and for all for prisoners of large organizations grew. How to make a person enjoy the results of his labors when doing work? How to make him know why and why he does something? So that he wrote fewer reports and did not deal with things that are not interesting for him personally and do not overlap with his expertise?

Then I thought the longest and came up with the idea of ​​focusing on furious feedback. Nothing motivates a person how to perform an action and see what it has led to. If all actions in an organization are put on a single line (I call it lifeline) of a company’s development, filled in by all employees, with real time monitoring of the progress bars, everyone will understand where the company is going and what contribution each participant makes to this. Those. In one act, internal communication, project management and planning are decided. In the context of the mantra "in Russia, problems with managers" is a mega relevant and sought-after solution. But how to explain to companies what it is and why they need it?

4. How to learn to speak a foreign language fluently?

Even though I am only a quarter of Russian (one grandmother), when I listened to the outpourings of May Hart Inglish from Vitaly Mutko, I was ashamed. I saw a bunch of colleagues who calmly read letters in English, but when it came to talking, they blushed and grinned. Of course, I would like to solve this problem.

There are a lot of competitors since the time of the Tower of Babel. The problem is as old as the world, only for some reason it is solved by old-fashioned methods. Is it possible to solve it using the sea of ​​content available on the modern Internet? Moreover, in the study of languages, I have something and I understand. After all, independently studied seven pieces, plus the three that he knew at school.

5. How to find a loved one?

From several sources, I heard that a decent girl to find a decent guy is a problem. Because a decent girl on a dating site will not go. Checking this statement, I went to a dating site and poked around a bit. Well this is how many lonely people there are, comrades, who like photos stupidly! Even the point that borsch can cook, no. But what about the spiritual world? But what about intelligence? Problem? Problem!

If you somehow use the behavior of a person on the Internet in order to offer him a partner, as books and goods are offered to him in online stores, this will more objectively reflect similarity in interests than the attractiveness of a bathing suit in the photo. Especially in the conditions of the existence of Photoshop.

6. Where can I get the background minus for the video card?

I did a video card a couple of times, and there wasn’t enough backing tracks to fit right into the spirit of the postcard. It is even incomprehensible by what criterion to look for and what it all means to “fit into the spirit of the postcard” But you must. Especially for corporate greetings, where you can’t even find music.

And why not to generate this backing track? The laws of musical harmony are not particularly complex, and in the postcards no complicated jazz frills are needed. If you somehow learn to stick it to the video or generate it according to a given rhythm, then there will be a dream.

7. How not to waste life sitting on airplanes on business trips?

Flew a certain number of times on business trips to the United States, and zadolbalsya. And what to say to those who live by this? Why do they fly at all? Well, all sorts of pianists and top models who earn by showing themselves live. Why fly to rallies? If you solve this problem, you can make good money on these rich guys.

For some reason, it seems that people go on business trips to meetings, because live communication still has some advantages over communication by phone or video chat. If you find these benefits and transmit them over the Internet, then you will not have to waste your life on twelve-hour flights.

8. How to evaluate the architecture of the software system?

Here the horse-radish you will understand - the architect does the work, or not. Says he does. And how to check is not clear. Well, this is, after all, not an art, in order to paint a black square, and say "you don't understand anything." This is a technical science. That would be to write software to which you give the system, and he says - the degree of fucking architecture is catastrophically close to Microsoft Office.

It is difficult to formalize the architecture, but it is possible. Not for nothing, for three years I was thinking about metrics and trying to express architecture in information flows and localization of intensive communications. Something from this can and will burn out. Or maybe not. Although, given the complexity of the problem, to prove that the product gives inadequate results, it will still not be possible.

9. How to overcome procrastination?

I saw a lot of people who have a lot of ambitious plans that they never get down to. I myself was often approached with a request to share the “secrets” of my self-organization. And it would be cool to write software that helps to organize themselves.

To motivate a person to something, you need to somehow show him the leaking time and actively motivate him, showing the approach of the goal. You can think about how to punish somehow for laziness - to beat them with a current, to write nasty things on his behalf on social networks, etc.

10. How to choose a direction for your business?

Well, a recursive problem. I choose a business direction, I choose, I am worried. And this path is taken by every startup. Vaughn, dude from a joke brothel opened. Make a service that takes a startup and recommends him the most suitable business for him.If we evaluate the degree of suitability, it is possible to milk the venture capitalists - they are also interested in what they invest in.

Even it is not clear how to solve this problem. Trends to analyze? Crowdsourcing? Psychological test? Looking for repetition? Language analysis of routine on the Internet?

Evaluation criteria hunt

After analyzing all my thoughts about the advantages and disadvantages of problems and their solutions, I identified the following criteria.

Interest

How interesting is it for me to deal with this problem? In principle, I can find an interest in anything, but why look for an interest in a women's novel when you can read Dostoevsky? The minimum mark is not interested at all, the maximum mark is drooling.

Expertise

As far as I understand the subject area and how easily I can draw new knowledge. The minimum score is a full kettle, the maximum is a guru.

User audience

What percentage of the population of this planet faces this problem? The minimum score is none, the maximum is all.

Ease of solution

Intuitively, how easy is it to solve this problem? It is clear that before the start of active work it is impossible to assess the exact complexity of the solution, but do not forget the thoughts of Robert Sheckley about “The Right Question.” The minimum score - the most difficult, the maximum score - an absolute freebie.

Understand the problem

About implicit problems and the detection of a problem by the solution itself - this is all good, but in order to convey to the user a problem that he doesn’t guess, you need powerful marketing. I, with my desire to attract less people, should save on those procedures that can be avoided. The maximum score is an obvious problem, the minimum score is not an obvious problem, and the hell you can prove it is.

The ranking of problems

So, there are problems, there are evaluation criteria, it remains to cross them. Before considering the final score, I would still need to determine my own priorities for the importance of the criteria, and introduce appropriate weights so that these criteria make the greatest contribution to the final assessment. Personally, I started a personal business in order to:

1. Enjoy work
2. Solve the problems of a large number of people
3. Try your strength alone

In that order. Therefore, I weigh the corresponding criteria by 1.8, 1.5 and 1.2, respectively. Others, when making decisions, can weigh their priorities and criteria - this formula subjectively reflects my preferences.

By the way, for the sake of interest, the problem / solution from the introductory anecdote can also be ranked in the general crowd. We'll throw in a brothel and see how the oldest professions apply to me. Well, what if?

Problem	Interest	Expertise	Lecture hall	Ease	Comprehensibility	Total
Melody Notes	four	four	one	2	9	25.5
Traffic jams	7	3	four	five	ten	38.6
Motivation in the organization	7	7	four	four	four	34.4
Foreign languages	ten	eight	7	four	ten	52.5
Close person	eight	five	eight	five	ten	48.4
Minuses for video cards	five	four	2	3	eight	28.6
Business trips	6	2	four	2	ten	32,8
Systems architecture	7	9	2	2	6	33.8
Procrastination	6	four	7	four	eight	38.9
Own business	five	2	3	one	eight	26.1
Brothel	one	one	6	ten	ten	33.8

Phew! Fortunately, the brothel did not win! Thank you, Lord!

With one blow of two, no three birds with one stone!

So, the top three winners:

1. Foreign languages ​​- 52.5
2. Close person - 48.4
3. Procrastination - 38.9

If you look closely, then these problems are much closer than it might seem at first glance. Procrastination is one of the main reasons why people abandon learning a foreign language and most often pay a tutor to kick them for their own money. As for a loved one, in my understanding, a loved one is the one with whom you speak the same language. After all, the human language is so ambiguous and multidimensional that foreigners are essentially foreigners to us!

So it is decided, I have to improve the teaching of people to foreign languages, struggling with their procrastination, and if I find people close to me, I will not interfere with them.