Now armed with a framework to choose my next startup idea and a better understanding of myself, in the coming days or weeks I will work to unravel my next challenge.

Be aware that, some of the 7 elements that characterised a startup ideas are not within your control and other are. Let me illustrate this.

1). Customer – the owners of the problem whom startup want to serve. In your control.

Note: If you decide to use the customer group as a guide, by choosing the type of customer you want to serve THEN figure out a problem they faced which you want to solve. One might argued that eventually if you pivot you might change the customer groups – but you would have an options to pivot or not; or to target other problem within the same customer group.

2). Product – the service or solution startup develop and sell. In your control.

Note: Once you have chosen whom you want to serve, you next challenge is to figure out and pick a meaningful problem that you can develop a product that are scalable, sustainable and where the customer are ready to pay. This exercise is part of lean startup discovery method.

3). Business model – how startup make money. In your control.

Note: This is part of lean startup method that depends on your product, customer acquisitions, delivery, customer and market.

4). Sales and marketing channel – how startup sell it. In your control.

Note: This is part of lean startup method and it is important to understand the (future) scalability of your startup.

5). Market – the group of people buying the product. Partial control.

Note: Your market is defined by your customer and product decision. This include competitors, existing providers, existing practices, etc. Hence, you do not have a direct control over this. It is important to consider this when you choose the customer group and type of product to develop.

6). Momentum – the timing, market forces and direction. Little/No control.

Note: You have little control on the short and mid-term over the industry trends, consumer behaviours, technological advancement, etc. You might argue that in exceptionally cases where a startup can create a completely new market, new needs, new behaviour, etc. This is rather an exception and is not the norm – not realistic especially during the early stage if you are looking to monetise and gain significant traction.

7). Founder (s) – the founding and management team capability to execute. In your control.

Note: This is crucial because if you get this wrong in the beginning you would reduced your chance to success and would have to compensate thru the other elements or work even harder (if even possible…). Hence choose wisely as if your life depends on it…

The next step to put this analysis framework into action to (1) identify my next startup idea before jumping into (2) the discovery phase and (3) the growing stage.

I will share my discovery in my future post.