Business idea may be generated from application of research topic, improvement of existing products and services, imagination of new services which might be enjoyable. This time, we would like to try to generate business idea by designing new products or services from “needs” by using concept of Design Thinking.
Triggers of needs may be obtained from dissatisfactory, inconvenient, uneasy, troublesome, and/or inefficient issues (“ISSUES” hereinafter) to which you are/were facing. Of course, you may have some idea by thinking social issues like aging population, falling birthrate, revitalization of local communities, and global warming. Those words, however, are relatively ambiguity and vague, and it would be difficult to specify business idea.
As advanced home work, students listed up 10 kinds of dissatisfactory, inconvenient, uneasy, troublesome, and/or inefficient issues (“ISSUES” hereinafter) to which they are/were facing. In addition, some fields were identified by the facilitators in advance, including;
- ISSUES in the field of social media experience
- ISSUES in the filed of shopping experience
- ISSUES in the field of co-working experience
- ISSUES in the filed of your hobby
- ISSUES relating to “transfer(transportation)”
- ISSUES in the filed of hospitality (OMOTENASHI)
Each team had 3-4 members. They heard and studies above ISSUES raised by the opposite side of team and picked up 1 ISSUE. Members and the theme picked up of each team as follows;
Team 1 Okazaki(total), Sano(ToTAL), Kamoi(AGL) and Egashira(AGL):
“I would like to send a thank you letter when someone gives me something, but easily forget and get too late, feel guilty.”
Team 2: Osaka(total), Kida(OPEN), and Matsuzaki
“My grandmother was hard to transfer the train at Shinjuku Station because there was almost no escalator or elevator.”
Team 3: Oka(OPEN), Kiyohara(OPEN), Kito(OPEN) and Miura(OPEN)
“I care about my breath odor when I talk with others”
Team 4: Guests from Hamada High School teachers
“I should have had my business card in my school days.”
Team 5 Marcos(ToTAL), Ochiai(OPEN), Miyoshi(ToTAL) and Yamamoto(AGL)
“I am very sad when I invite other guys for drinking but they don’t say anything to me like just saying thanks after drinking.”
Team 6 Kotchkorn(ToTAL), Sogawa(OPEN), Chen(AGL) and Ujiie(OPEN)
“Since I am color-blind, it is sometimes hard to distinguish the colors in graphs during presentations”
Brushing up solution ideas by iterating 2 kinds of loops; the loop of deriving and/or assuming insights behind the ISSUE, then defining issues, and the loop of generate solution ideas, getting feedbacks by showing prototype(usage scene)m then re-defying the issue or improving solutions.
As the result, following ideas of products (services) were generated by each team.
Team 1: A service of sending thanks letter automatic by answering questions (image of Akinator)
Team 2: Wheel chair which can bring passenger to the destination automatic by voice indication
Team 3: Stick type of checker device by showing level of breath odor by color
Team 4: Smart phone application for matching VCs and entrepreneurs in the event
Team 5: Web site service of sending latters of appreciation by each other. You can also check record of such letters and events in past.
Team 6: A display device which can transform colors of the presentation slides located to the seats in the hall.
Although there are a lot of points to be studied and checked afterwards, such as a) if this idea should be the core of solution for the needs, b) if the customer is eager to have to solution by paying money, and c) if the technology can be used, these might be good ideas as triggers for preparing Application Form for LLP2019.
This IdeaThon workshop was held as a step for generating business ideas for their participation to the program of Lean Launchpad 2019, as a main menu of “Practical Group Work”, to be held in 2019 1Q2Q. If you want to join LLP2019, you need to submit Application Form by 4/Mar(Mon) and make a short pitch of business ideas on 7/Mar(Thu) 18:00-20:00@S422. Details can be referred in URL below.
(Prof. Keisuke Yamada, ToTAL)
