People-centered entrepreneurship

Posted on February 22nd, 2012 by Sacha Chua

~~Practically all~~ Many of the books I’m reading about entrepreneurship assume that you start with a big idea for a product or service, and then you find and validate the market for it.

Many of the people I talk to start with the same assumptions, too. “Oh, I’ve always wanted to start my own business, but I’m waiting for the idea to hit me.”

Starting with the idea seems like putting the cart before the horse, and the cart is full of things you want instead of things other people want.

I was mindmapping where I’d like to start with this business experiment. Consulting is handy, but hourly billing’s not going to get me to where I want to go: a family-friendly business where value isn’t directly tied to time.

Every time I tried to come up with a snazzy business idea, though, I hit a brick wall. It didn’t feel right. It felt like I was approaching the challenge in the wrong way.

I thought: Well, if entrepreneurship is about going from having one boss to having a hundred bosses, maybe I can pick the kinds of bosses I’d like to work with. Maybe I should start by picking the kinds of people I’d like to have as clients, then looking for ways I can delight them, then looking for ways I can take advantage of my talents or skills to deliver more value than it costs me.

I figure that if I pick a segment of people who have demonstrated the willingness and ability to pay for products or services, and who have some idea of what they want, then that’s as good a place as any to start experimenting.

The wild “You don’t know what you want yet, but I’m creating it for you anyway” innovation can wait for when I have more business experience. In the beginning, it’s okay to take a well-known model and a well-known product, and look for ways I can put my own spin on it.

So I brainstormed personas representing some of the kinds of people I would love to learn more about and help out. Maybe I can make their lives better. Maybe I can help interesting people do interesting things. Here are some ideas:

Ive, the introverted independent
Ell, the Emacs enthusiast
Val, the visual thinker
Em, the excited entrepreneur
Quinn, the Quantified Self tracker
Pat, the practical parent
Bobby, the bashful blogger
Chris, the conference commando
Cathy, the cat cuddler

More details in this outline view of my mindmap

I “bump” into people like them often. Who knows, you might even identify with one of them. (Who? Tell me in the comments, or e-mail at sacha@sachachua.com – I’d love to pick your brain!) Don’t see yourself there? Tell me what kind of person you are. =)

I think it would be great to look for small, cost-effective ways to make their (your!) life more awesome. I’m good at building systems, automating, sorting things out, and setting life up for constant improvement. There might be ways to scale across time or across more people. Hmm…

I described what I was thinking about to Mel Chua. She laughed and said it was like user-centered design. That made me think of Karen Quinn Fung, another friend of mine, whom I had met when she was working at the IBM User-Centered Design lab under Karel Vredenburg.

Where can I find more business/entrepreneurship books that start with people first instead of assuming you’ve got some genius idea? =) (Lean Startup is somewhat related to this because of pivots and watching how people actually work…)

More posts about: business, entrepreneurship // 8 Comments »

Short URL: http://sachachua.com/blog/p/23169

Nathaniel Mallet

Have you ever read “Innovation and Entrepreneurship” by Peter F. Drucker? The premise of that book is that innovation is more a methodical process than a Big Idea or a Eureka moment.

It’s not specifically people-focused, like you asked, but he does give a pretty good list of places where you can look for business ideas. I thought that might be helpful.
Brendon Robinson

Contextual Inquiry is a good method for identifying ways you can improve the work process of a targeted group of people. Not coincidentally, it is one of the methods that can be used in user-centered design.
http://sachachua.com Sacha Chua

Nathaniel, Brendon: Oooh, thanks for the recommendation! It’s always such a big help to find the words that I need in order to look for things. Contextual inquiry might be handy in my collaboration consulting work, too. Thank you!
Alexis Chan

Hi Sacha! I sent you a direct message via Twitter. Hope you received it!
http://www.daysstories.blogspot.com Mom

What about “Harvey, your helpless mother?” as a possible client? We need a geek guide to take us out of the dark ages. :)
http://kguac.com Katie

Hi Sacha! :) Great post, I love this approach. I’ve known broadly what type of thing I want to build to help people, but not knowing specifically what, chose to build a blog and online community first. This method has already helped me better understand what people want. I’d love to explore this approach with you – @heykatieben. Cheers! :)
http://sachachua.com Sacha Chua

Katie: Alexis pointed me to your site – I like your energy and enthusiasm! =)
Pingback: Visual book notes: 6 Secrets to Startup Success | sacha chua :: living an awesome life

On This Day...

2013: Seeing the futures — I often imagine different futures, sketching them out on paper or in those moments right before or after dreaming. It’s [...]
2011: Kaizen: Thinking about presentations — I’ve just finished a presentation (The ITSC Guide to Conference Awesomeness) and I’ve got a few presentations coming up: Remote Presentations [...]
2011: How I spent my Family Day weekend — New recipes: chapati, curried chickpeas, vegetable biryani (from sauce), Tex-mex lasagna Lots of time spent putting together presentations. Worth it, though! [...]
2010: Seeds — It was sunny and almost spring-like on Sunday. I rode my bicycle 5km to the Artscape Wychwood Barns, shedding my [...]
2009: LifeCampTO: Tweaking the plan! — Yesterday, Jordan Baker and I had a great conversation about how to make LifeCampTO even better. We wanted to figure [...]
2007: Yes to social networking, no to MLM — Because of a matter involving some people I know, I ended up taking a look at Success University. I have to [...]
2006: ‘tinerant Tuesday — I firmly believe that the best way to get to know a city is to wander around. With that in mind, [...]
2006: Boston Science Museum — I cannot resist science museums. I am endlessly amused by models and hands-on experiments. As a reward for good behavior or [...]
2005: Watched kabuki — Watched one act of a kabuki play at http://www.kabuki-za.co.jp/ . It was _beautiful_. Props to dagbrown for that excellent idea. Also, [...]
2005: Baguio plans — how's this plan leave manila thrusday night be here friday morning have your talk saturday afternoon be in manila [...]
2005: Geek Love — Revision from Dominique Cimafranca: One of the hallmarks of the stereotypical male computer nerd is his ineptitude with members of the opposite [...]
2004: Sample array code — import java.applet.*; import java.awt.*; import java.awt.event.*; /** * Demo class for arrays * @author Sacha Chua (sacha@free.net.ph) * @date 22-Feb-2004 */ public class ReallySimpleAddressBook [...]
2004: YASD: Don’t cast sleep on the priest! — Thought I’d help my pet baby green dragons out by casting sleep on the priest. This, apparently, is a Very [...]
2004: CS161 Finals — The following students are to take the CS161 final exam on Thursday. They can e-mail me at sacha@free.net.ph to find out [...]
2004: Exemptions for CS161 — No MIS student qualified for exemption.
2004: Fantastic news! Wonderful news! Excellent news! — We get to postpone finals for juniors in CS161 to the normal time. Wheee! I feel so much better now. Of course, [...]
2004: “View From the Alpha Geek” — From ACM Technews: Programmer Rael Dornfest keeps track of IT innovation and innovators as part of his job putting together O’Reilly & [...]
2004: “Inventors Strut Stuff at Demo Show” — From ACM Technews: Dozens of high-tech innovations, ranging from small PCs to blogging tools to “augmented reality” software, were spotlighted at the [...]
2003: my dad and his vaio — tech — So my dad has this really sweet Vaio U1. I walked into the room and saw him using it… to play [...]
2003: Finished “The Human Condition” — school — Only one ream of paper to go. My highlighter looks like it’s running a bit low on ink. I want to [...]
2003: back to work — school — Armed with my makeshift strawberry sugar-er and my trusty highlighter, I return to work.
2003: sugar-coated strawberries — personal — The strawberries are nothing spectacular – a bit on the old side, with strange dark spots – but hey, they’re strawberries. [...]
2003: a ream of arendt — school — I still have to go through a ream of Arendt later… Ah well.
2003: done with the smaller readings — school, tips — I’ve come to appreciate the value of light yellow highlighters, but I still refuse to use them on anything but temporary [...]
2003: hermit mode — personal — I think it’s about time I resumed hermit mode.
2003: not going to party — personal — My mother strongly feels that I shouldn’t go to the party later, since my finals are next week after all. I [...]
2003: gospel exercise — school — Okay, the gospel exercise is more or less done. Whew! That’s out of the way.

sacha chua living an awesome life