Sketchnote — Identifying Business Potential

This is a sketchnote of podcast of Kanyi Maqubela published on Creative Confidence by IDEO

If I had to choose between entrepreneurs who love and hated risks, I would choose the latter — Kanyi Maqubela

Some key takeaways

Which startups are exciting to fund?

Spark

The one which has spark of inspiration. Ask what could go right. Many things can go wrong. Listening to the pitch if you get a spiky reaction, it’s likely to be interesting and fundable.

Market

What kind of market is the startup addressing? How big is it today and will it be tomorrow? And what’s the urgency of the solution. Can map the startup on the graph of urgency and market scale. Fund BIG scale and HIGH urgency.

Team

They should be able to articulate the idea well. Initially the founders need to have a hunch, idea may not be fully baked.

In early stage articulation is very important as things are unclear

What are qualities of good Founder?

Comfortable in uncertainity

Be able to create a plan amidst extreme uncertainity and the plan should be inspirational enough to create excitement

Storyteller

Be able to tell story about the product/solution of what it would/could look like in future. Reach out to people and demonstrate story using cool tactics.

Business scientist

Be able to carry out series of experiments quickly understanding the urgency and scale of market. Take inferences from each experiment and quickly apply to the next one.

Risk Haters

People who take risks off the table quickly are the ones to fund.

Key pointers for founder before starting up

Personal Financial stability

Get personal finances in place so that it’s able to take care of 12–18 months of run way without deteriorating the lifestyle much. Unless you are

Become storyteller by writing

Start writing online. This will help to network and scale. Practising it will also help to articulate story well.

Learn to sell

Contact, present and make believer. This should become second nature.

Kumar Ahir is an independent consultant working in the field of Immersive Technologies, Product Design, Design Leadership, and Strategy. He is evangelizing Design for Immersive Technologies and UX by actively doing workshops on Design Thinking, Design for AR and VR, Prototyping for Mixed Reality technologies.

He aims to create a better Design Ecosystem for Immersive Technologies.

Know more about him at KumarAhir.com, LinkedIn and Twitter