The nth Venture Ideation Process
The nth Venture Ideation Process
Coming up with the next big thing can happen in many ways. Here’s a look at how the ideation process works and why it’s so important. Spoiler alert: Data is king.
How do people come up with ideas for businesses anyway?
There are countless ways this can be done, but here are a few of the more standard creative paths.
Perhaps you’re:
an entrepreneur who sees a market need based on your own personal experience.
a voracious consumer of news and noticed something interesting and went down the rabbit hole.
constantly looking for ideas and brainstorming.
Or, you could be one of those people who keeps a list of “bad” ideas hoping that one day the “right” one will come to you (truth be told, we hear this one a lot!)
At nth Venture, our ideation process is a combination of all of the above and, because we are a venture studio, the ideation process is foundational.
Every member of our studio staff is part of the process and, thanks to our diverse experience, we tend to come up with ideas that span industries and practice areas. It’s not just about getting the “right” idea, however–it’s often about finding the pockets of opportunity within the idea that either may not have been tapped or we feel could be done better.
More often than not, we identify, refine, hone, occasionally pivot, and refine again. That’s because we need to remain in a state of continuous learning, willing to take on new or changing information and use that to inform strategy and decision-making.
No matter how you come up with your idea, the most important part of the process is validating that idea to make sure there is a real-world market opportunity. This is a defining characteristic of the venture studio approach to ideation – deeply researched ideas with a data-validated path to success.
For nth Venture, there are a few additional criteria that we take into the ideation process, one of which is capital intensity.
Our structure.
Our structure is built around keeping early costs as low as possible to circumvent the lowest dips of the J curve. Reducing early expenses prevents a business from quickly and deeply sinking into the red. For example, a consumer product that requires significant inventory is not a likely candidate for our model, whereas service-based companies that can be run without significant upfront expenses are more appealing.
There are also potential network benefits with our other business units. Are there opportunities to cross-sell or collaborate? How can we maximize the impact of each business in relation to what we already have built in our portfolio?
Then, of course, there’s execution. Most can agree that somewhere between 90-99% of a startup’s likelihood for success is tied up in execution. That’s why we strive to build from ideas that revolve around high-performing individuals and teams. The right people with the right attitude tend to get the job done, and with our model, they’re properly incentivized to give it their all.
Learn more about our businesses at www.nthventure.com/portfolio and investment opportunities at www.nthventure.com/invest.