Well what is it?

Surrounded by Lego, the four of us played one weird game of Catch Phrase.

I was happy only one person was getting paid for it, and then remembered I was the one paying. I continued answering the questions. 

“Okay, what happens next?”

Last year a product idea dropped into my head at a business conference. The idea was well formed and had legs, as validated through conversations about the problem with 30+ of my target customers late last year. 

To quote one CEO,

‘I think you’re onto something.’ 

Since then I’ve been doing the mahi (work) to bring this idea to life. Luckily many of my closest friends have the skills to help with that.

In the past three weeks, with one of my closest mates by my side, incredible progress has been made to make this idea a reality. 

No one tells you about this part of the process, building a shared understanding out of thin air, using words to not only describe the thing but also describe why the thing is valuable. 

This liminal space of making the intangible tangible feels sacred and like an experience to be shared, which leads me here to you. 

Birthing an idea

As a product person I’m used to building a shared understanding with others using words, whiteboards and hand waving. This was my job and I loved it, helping tech and design people understand ‘the business’ and vice versa. It’s fun, learning to look at a concept through other people’s eyes.

But this time is different.

Genny alluded to it a few weeks ago,

‘It’s like we’re birthing something completely new, normally I don’t get to be in this stage. We’re usually working with something already formed, more like a toddler.’

I didn’t get it then, but I get it now. When you’re working on something that already exists you have a shared concept, something tangible exists that you are building on. The foundation has been laid, there’s something to point at. 

What happens when there’s nothing to point at?

Well, you get good at talking.

Genny and I spent our first week and a half together getting my well formed idea on post its.

Through a mix of activities we defined: What is it? What isn’t it? What are the fundamentals of how it works? What is the language we want to use? 

Free writing helped me explain the concept in more words, with Genny’s encouragement of what needed to be explored more fully. I could see her own understanding of what we are creating grow, and with it her excitement about the opportunity.

We walked through the lives of our target customers - leaders in business. What does it take to get an idea through to value creation when it’s not a software product with clear ownership and an established process? What happens when your idea is to create an empowered team with clear measures of success? Or to evolve how marketing and product work together towards product engagement metrics?

It was depressing realising the drudgery we often go through to make a thing happen when it involves others you don’t work closely with. Especially when everyone has calendars full of meetings and limited time to think about why they’re in said meetings. 

After four spacious days of describing and documenting what we want to create Genny had a long weekend in Whakatane and I created the first prototype.

When Genny arrived back we used a post it prototype on the wall and...

it worked.

Lovingly looking at our first iteration on the wall, I looked at her with wide eyes and said,

‘we’re in the product’. 

We were excited for our next day with a senior UX designer and a call with two developers to show our progress.

What’s a bike in a world without bikes

The next day was a time of handwaving and talking. I got to test out my very loose elevator pitch, which I described as an elevator pitch when the elevator has broken down and you’re trapped for hours.

We received great advice from the UX designer on where to go next:

‘Work on your value proposition and user types, then we’ll get a user journey together to create visuals to validate with your target customers.’

I felt stoked later in the evening when I virtually walked into the meeting with two technically minded friends. 

After more handwaving and going over the virtual representations of the prototype on the Lego room wall, our friends had questions.

‘I don’t get it. Is it a template library?’

At this point I realised what was clear in our heads, what Genny and I experienced, was not yet a shared experience conveyed in a short conversation.

What we had done is describe a bike to people in a world without bikes. 

How impressed would you be if you saw a bike for the first time, leaning against a fence?

In our longer day with the designer we were able to describe the bike and weave a long winded story about why bikes are cool. 

His advice about next steps made a lot more sense, it was time to describe succinctly the value of a bike in motion. 

Which led us back to the Lego room a week later with design and engineering peers, playing a weird game of Catch Phrase to build a shared understanding of we need to weave a concise story with visuals of a world with bikes for people who don’t know bikes. 

‘Okay, what happens next?’

What happens next is the idea baby is with design, to be made tangible. 

We won’t get it right the first time, but we don’t have to. We just need to keep iterating, validating, and focusing on the positive impact we want to make in the lives of leaders in business. 

It’s an odd feeling knowing that the idea baby is out of my hands for now, which takes me to the next baby to birth. 

The investment pitch. 

If you're a leader in business and are keen to learn more, send me a message or leave a comment. I would love to run our visual concept by you.