How to turn an idea into a business

This transcript has not been edited — please listen to the podcast to confirm any statements made by speakers. 

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Brian Shields, CEO & Co-Founder of Sprinter:

Everybody, welcome to the future @ work Podcast. I'm Brian shields. I'm here with my partner, Alex Ford-Carther. Hey, Alex, what are we gonna talk about today?

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Alex Ford-Carther, Chief Technology Officer & Co-Founder of Sprinter:

Today, we wanted to talk about problems, problems at work problems at home problems at the supermarket. How can we take these problems that everyone faces day in and day out, create solutions for those problems, develop products around those solutions, and finally, build a business around that product.

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Shields

So we're talking about having gone from a problem and you got an idea to solve a problem? How do we turn that into a business? Right?

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Ford-Carther  

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, the idea is that by the end of this episode, you'll learn exactly how to how to do this and how we did it multiple times throughout our careers. Very cool. So part one, number one, identifying problems. Yeah. Yeah, go for it.

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Shields  

Yeah, no, I mean, it's like, apples and apples, right. Like, everyone's got problems. So like, I mean, if you're a business owner, you got problems coming to from all sides, sales, marketing, Technology Operations, you know, you're probably dealing with your lawyers and your accountants at some point or another. And like, you know, figuring out how to streamline your business operations is, is going to be something where you're going to be able to find a technological solution, a digital solution to some of those problems.

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Ford-Carther  

So the question is, is this a problem that you have? Or is this a problem that a lot of people have, right? Yeah, being able to identify? You know, is this something that you can scale across multiple people? Or is it just something that hey, I've got this itch that I gotta scratch and nobody else has it?

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Shields  

Totally. And I think that one of the things just like you said, is like, is it a problem in your process? Or is this a oppresses problem for other people, right? So that's like, hey, there might be a, you know, off the shelf solution that you as a business owner aren't familiar with, you come to an agency, and you're like, hey, I want to build some software that does X, Y, and Z. And you're like, you mean Calendly. Or like, you know, you mean XYZ like, and there's already a tool that's out there that they're not familiar with. So I think that that happens a lot. And that's what I said, like, it might be that they have a manual or an analog process, or they have like a gap within their tech stack that they might be unaware of. And that's their problem. But if it's a problem for a lot of people, that's something worth actually building a software solution for, how

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Ford-Carther  

do you go about seeing if this is a problem that a lot of people want to fix? Or is it like something that's internal at your company, or just internal to you like, what what I mean, obviously, you can go out and Google stuff, but like, what is your process? What what do you think is the right approach to seeing if this is like a viable thing? Well,

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Shields  

there's two different kind of ways you can look at this, right? You can look at it from like a product design and development perspective, where you're thinking about this as like a user experience research problem. But you can also look at it as like a business owner entrepreneur perspective, where you're looking at this as like, what's the total addressable market? Right? Is there is there a serviceable obtainable market that I can go after, where I can make big money at this at scale, where it's worth going and raising capital from somebody to build the solution for this problem, right? Then if you're looking at it from like, a product design development perspective, you're really looking at it from that user experience research of like, okay, what tools are people currently using to solve these problems? And how are these tools failing to provide the solutions that they're looking for? How can we build a better mousetrap? How can we, you know, figure out ways to improve these tools or build better ones, to solve this problem in a new or novel way? I think that those are all things to kind of keep in mind when you're looking at defining what the problem is.

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Ford-Carther  

Yeah, one thing that, you know, we obviously have worked with a lot of different companies and kicked around for quite a few ideas on our own, like, one of the things that I do for research is just I go to CrunchBase, right, I go, I go to, you know, specific websites to figure out, you know, are there other people that are trying to tackle this same problem? Are there other companies that have raised money to tackle the same problem? And, you know, kind of digging deeper into the problem itself? Like, you know, going around asking people, you know, maybe you come up with surveys and send it out to your friends and family and see if that

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Shields  

one nowadays, there just be a couple of videos on tic tac, let the algorithm take it to the for you page for everybody and let it do its work? Yeah,

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Ford-Carther  

I mean, like, you know, throw a Twitter thread up there and see how many reactions you get and see if people are like, Oh, this, this is something that I faced. And this is something that I deal with. So like, I think there's a lot of resources now that probably weren't available. 10 Even you know, 510 years ago that can quickly help you identify if this is a particular problem.

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Shields  

How many people were really feeling the need to video call all their business meetings until COVID. Hit right like we already had FaceTime, right? Just no one used it, right? Like zoom solved a problem that we already had tools that it was already a solved problem, right? But no one was using it yet because they didn't have the need.

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Ford-Carther  

Right. So That's kind of, you know, problem versus knee, like, is it something that a lot of people are going to need? And a lot of it is, like, at what time? Are they going to need it? Like,

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Shields  

in terms of the market? Right? Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, it's like the old saying is, like, you know, being too early is is just as bad as being too late. Right. And I think that there's a lot of tools that had been built before their time. I think that's the kind of the the nature of the beast, if you're working with bleeding edge technology, you know, I remember playing with the Nintendo Virtual Boy in like, 92, or something like that. And it was like this big red headset and like, come on, wait, we're not even there yet. You know? So I mean, like, we got the Oculus, but like, that was 30 years ago. Yeah. So it's like, there's no shortage of, you know, attempts to solve a problem before the problem needs to be solved at scale?

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Ford-Carther  

Well, also, you know, depending on what industry you're in, and, you know, if you're, you know, looking at it from an industry perspective, like there's definitely industries that are ahead of the curve behind the curve when it comes to technology. And obviously, like these problems that we're talking about, we're we're looking at from a technology side, like how do we solve this with technology? So, you know, industry like healthcare, or logistics, like those are industries that are probably behind the eight ball a little bit, because there's a lot of bureaucracy and kind of people set in their ways, as far as like fixing some of those problems. But there's a lot of problems in those industries. But are people going to adapt new solutions? Or they just kind of kind of continue with the way the past? And so you not only kind of have to factor in like, is this a problem? But is this the right time for this? And is this going to be adoptable? As you know, if I tried to turn this into a business, so, you know, if you're forward thinking type person working in like a non tech industry, like, there's definitely opportunities for tech to solve some problems, but you've kind of got to look at a bigger macro picture to see if if people are ready for whatever you want to come up with. Yeah,

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Shields  

I mean, if you're kind of putting the entrepreneur hat on, right, and you're looking at this from a venture perspective, and trying to figure out like, you know, how big is this problem? You know, what's it? What's the, you know, the market size for solving it? You know, it's kind of like, you know, you can you can pick one or two, right? And it's either it's a big problem in a small industry, or it's a small problem in a big industry. And if you can get a big problem, big industry, yeah, there's probably already solutions out there, and you got a better mousetrap, right. But I do think that there, like you said, there's no shortage of industries that are still way behind the eight ball in terms of technological adoption. I think that it's a generational problem. I think that as the older generation starts to retire in the newer generations entering the workforce, and they're coming in coming out of, you know, they've had iPads and class, since they were in junior high. No one's going into those careers without like wanting a firm change in that, you know, technology investments that their companies are making. And I think that you're kind of already seeing that with some of the great resignation, people are coming back from COVID. And like, well, we're all working on MacBooks and zoom calls. And now like, we're going back into like, the, you know, there's not enough toilet paper in the bathroom for everybody here. And so I think that businesses kind of figure out how to how to adopt or adapt to keep their talent. But then you get all the actual, there's never going to not be analog industries, right? You're always gonna have somebody who needs to do work that is offline, right? And so it's about how you make sure that you're automating the processes at those businesses so that they can unlock human potential in a way that they're not dragged down by that bureaucracy.

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Ford-Carther  

Yeah, and as as kind of technology evolves over time, right. Like, I think, you know, some of the problems that you find are not just with, you know, the old way, but also might be with some of the technology that was already created. And like, people are using tech differently. So like, you know, an example is like Gmail and Google, like, people use Gmail and Outlook, but like, is there a better way to do email, and there's companies right now trying to solve like, the email problem, and so like, but email was just, you know, invented like, 1020 30 years ago. So like, it's like,

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Shields  

I mean, email, emails,

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Ford-Carther  

Boomer attack right now. Right? So you're, you're looking at, you know, problems, not just in like, analog, but also digital, and like, how do you solve for the speed at which people are using their devices? And, you know, now you're moving from desktop world to a mobile world? Like, how, you know, how can we solve problems that, you know, technology might have been architected for a desktop or like a old way of thinking, like you see companies out there that are just trying to speed up and solve solutions for small micro problems within their tech stack, but we'll give them an extra hour in the day. Right.

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Shields  

Well, I think that's a huge issue too, because I think that people you know, not just thinking from like a business perspective, but you know, a lot of consumer technology that's out there, you know, people didn't necessarily think, like Instacart Oh, that's what I really need somebody doing my shopping for you. It's like, yeah, everyone has like, Oh, if I had a genie they could grant me Three wishes, and I've never doing errands again is one of them, right? But then people were able to build those solutions at scale. And like I love when you use Instacart, it's like, oh, you've saved 15 hours using this app, you've saved 125 hours using this app. Like, that's a great, great little feature that they can put in and make everyone realize what they're actually solving in terms of that, like the ability to not waste time commuting anymore. Right with with the new software platform is being able to work with teams around the world to you know, for cost savings, I think that that stuff is all, you know, just the problems that can be solved at scale or, you know, can be tremendously valuable for both their business handyperson. Talk

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Ford-Carther  

to the talk to, you know, sprinter and how we kind of identified our problem. And

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Shields  

yeah, well, I mean, like, we talked about this, in the last episode, last two episodes about some of the problems that we felt that we were facing, as you know, as entrepreneurs, as agency owners, and then just working with a lot of other business owners, and you know, also just in our career working at, you know, corporations and other startups. I think that a lot of it was like, Okay, what tools are we currently using? To solve our problems? What do we not like about them? Like, why do we need to have three different tools working all needing to work together to solve a specific problem where we can build our own solution for it? And so a lot of what we did was actually kind of like looking at our own, you know, what were the what were the chinks? In the armor of our business? Right? And how could we, you know, kind of make sure that not we're not just relying on third party software tools to kind of patch over them. But we're actually able to build a stronger foundation from our business from the inside out, kind of going back to first principles like looking at like, Okay, what what do we need to run the business? Like, what are the things that drive the value for our clients drive the value for our shareholders drive the value for our stakeholders, and I think that, you know, making sure that people can kind of look at that holistically is is very valuable.

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Ford-Carther  

That's a great segue. So kind of part two of this kind of list that we're working off of today, finding solutions. So you kind of just talked about finding solutions, but like, if it's, you know, say you found a problem, like, what are some things and tips that you would tell someone as they're trying to? Okay, maybe I do you have a viable business with this solution that I'm looking to create? Like, what are some tips that you could give someone to, like, kind of get that process going from, you know, maybe a napkin into something that not building a product yet, but like some of that research discovery phase of getting that off?

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Shields  

Yeah, I think don't number one, like if you're if you're looking to engage like an individual, or, you know, freelancer or an agency to kind of help you solve these problems, I think you need to kind of come come correct, like, do your homework, do your research, come with some screen designs, even if they're, like, rough by hand, take photos of your, from your phone, and like, kind of do the paper version of what you want something to look like, right? Like, show me examples of other things that are out there that are kind of similar, you know, whether it's like kind of like a comparable product or comparable, you know, solution to the industry that doesn't solve the exact same problem. I think that you want to make sure that you kind of touched on this earlier, but it's like, you know, is anyone is this actually a problem? Or is this just something that annoys you? Right? If because if it's like, if it's an actual problem that's out there, like it would, there'd be someone already swimming in the water, right. And so you want to make sure that, like, someone's kind of looking after these things, I don't think people just trip and stumble over a billion dollar ideas, because, you know, a lot of problems do have solutions that are out there, that isn't, that might not be very good ones, right? You know, you get somewhere with a horse, but turned out you had to get wet if it was raining, you know. And so I think that a lot of times people will be able to find out solutions that they weren't necessarily aware of. So I do think that it's doing the research, seeing what's out there, but then also talking to people that build new products and build products for other industries. Because a lot of times there might be a solution to a similar problem in a different industry that you're not familiar with, because you are kind of looking at your what's out there with the blinders from your perspective from from your career and your work background.

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Ford-Carther  

Yeah, we've dealt with a lot of people that come to us with, obviously, experience in their realm in their field, but maybe not experienced in tech. And we've, you know, we've seen people come to us with ideas, and they'll say, oh, have you seen this, this and this, and this, because we were in the tech space, and we kind of understand, you know, what's already out there, and we kind of keep our finger on the pulse. But, you know, obviously, like, doing your own research, you know, I think common common phrase, but, you know, maybe you set up some sort of, you know, questionnaire or you set up some sort of like, you know, I think dummy website that like, actually, like get people interested or like, you know, I think there's some good examples of companies out there that without even starting to build something like we're able to capture an audience or capture like, some sort of data that was able to allow them to prove that this is a viable business and that there are people that want this and would pay for it.

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Shields  

And a lot of times you can do that without a heavy Investment technology, I'm pretty sure the MVP for Airbnb was an air mattress in a spreadsheet, you know, like, I don't think that like, you know, you don't need to, like a lot of times you your your your your super base level MVP is probably a questionnaire in a spreadsheet, right and like doing doing some surveys, do some research, you know, hey, if it looks something like this, that you could do freehand with pen doesn't need to look great. If it looks something like this, this is something you would use you can get, you can get the feedback from nothing, then go to an agency and say, This is what I want to build. This is the feedback I got, you know, what do you guys think? Can you do something like this are what what API's what might we use? What kind of building blocks can we bring into this to make this a reality?

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Ford-Carther  

Yeah, I think buffer is one of the tools that we use, I think when they started, they had like a single landing page and drove people to it and asked if they would use a service and got their email, and acted like it was a live service. But once someone put in their email, they're like, Oh, thanks. So we haven't built it yet, but we'll keep it on the list. So there's definitely, you know, things out there that, you know, you can start with, and there's obviously tools. You know, if you're like, like a lifestyle company, right, or like, community, if your ideas based on like building a community, like, there's already tools out there that will allow you to build a community, whether it's I don't even know, like Facebook groups or like Slack, Slack Discord server, communities, if that's the solution to your problem without building tech, right. And once you've established that, oh, I've got this community of people that would pay for whatever I build, like there's, you know, build the community first. And then you go back and build the software, if you think it's an actual viable business. So you kind of have to discern between, you know, is this a lifestyle thing? Or is it so like, a real long term business? Is this a million dollar business? Is this $100,000 business and based on what you come up with, like you might not want invest in tech, or maybe think that investing in tech will be the right answer.

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Shields  

When I think also, you might have situations where people have have a community and they don't know what the what to do with it, right. And so, you know, one of my favorite examples of that is pool suite where they had this community and they're like, Oh, well, how do we what do we do with it? Like, we got this music community, and they're all listening this all the time. And then they went out and created vacation launched like a sunscreen. And then they went out and you know, launched the pool suite, NF T's and they're now they're going into like, manna, Dow and like, they're going full blown web three. And that was all, okay, well, what's the problem that we can help these people solve? And at the end of the day, they're like, We just wanna help people party and throw a vibe. And like, you know, sometimes that's a problem for people.

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Ford-Carther  

Sure. What did we do? Was sprinter pre development of our platform. And like, post idea, like, what was that in the middle? Where we kind of, like work through what sprinter was gonna become? And like, how do we go about, like, seeing if this was like, a real thing?

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Shields  

Yeah, I mean, like, we, we saw a lot of problems with the tools that we were using, because they all seemed a little clunky, from what we were looking at from like, you know, kind of we both candidates, like a UX design perspective. And, you know, it was like, Okay, we got all these different tools, they're not great, we have to teach every client how to use 15 different pieces of software to properly manage their platform like they're there. All these dashboards are in different places like this is not ideal. We can grab screenshots from everything and throw them into a PowerPoint deck, I'm going to give a presentation. But this is like a lot of manual report generation. And it's like not the best use of everyone's time. And so there's a lot of things like that. But like we started, kind of we identified our problem early on. And then it was really about, we began like over the course of all of our client engagements, starting to kind of recognize how everyone was starting to see these problems in different ways from the client side. And we started talking more with our product managers and our designers and our developers and looked at how some of the tools that they were using, looking at some of the problems that they were having on their side of the equation, right, like, Okay, you guys are talking to the clients, you guys are hearing what they want. But then like, we're only getting it in documentation form, and it's not being perfectly captured or XYZ and like, how can we improve that process? So we really kind of looked at this not only from okay, we were the first were the product managers, then we were the agency owners, and then we were like, Okay, now let's talk to the clients and see what their pain points were. Now let's talk to the product managers that are working for us as agency owners, what are their pain points? Now let's talk to the devs, the designers, the marketers, the strategists that are working on these projects as well. Let's talk to the other agency owners that we work with how are they dealing with this? Like, what tools are they using? And then we kind of looking back and again being like Alright, now that we see this kind of problem from like a holistic perspective, now we can start to design the solution that can solve this problem for each of these different user groups.

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Ford-Carther  

Yeah, and even before we kind of started architecting, the software like we implemented some of that process and those learnings with the existing tools that we had, like we still had like different processes that we tried to implement, implement, that mirrored what we thought we were going to build in, in the software that we that ended up becoming sprinter. But the idea is that oh, you know, if we had the spreadsheets and this data, we could follow a process and establish, you know, if we had this chat feature in the platform, it would look like this. So we try to emulate the same experience using slack.

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