Don't look for a startup idea, but a startup problem

By Maksym Babych, Founder and CEO of SpdLoad, the software development company for startups.

There are many different frameworks for finding a product or startup idea. In this article, I'd like to discuss a framework that you probably haven't heard of and also talk about a counter-intuitive way to come up with ideas.

TRIZ and TIPS

The Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TIPS, or Russian TRIZ) is a set of methods for solving and improving problems by finding and resolving contradictions.

The idea is that the same methods can solve different technical problems and contradictions.

To solve a particular problem, TIPS users first reduce the problem to a generalized form. Then they try to solve the generalized problem with an appropriate general method. Only then do they return to the particular situation and try to apply the solution found there.

Simply put, the theory is based on the assumption that whatever problem a person is facing, someone, at some time and somewhere, has already found a solution and solved it. Let's take an example.

Previously, people had to call and speak to an operator to order food delivery from their favorite pizzeria. It was sometimes impossible to pass, especially on a Friday. The contradiction is that an operator cannot take more than a certain number of calls.

The solution seems obvious: use an additional operator to distribute the load. That's what the restaurants did. But really, the ideal result would be the absence of operators and the ability to place the order yourself. Over time, someone looked into the problem of restaurants and developed apps to order and deliver food.

You haven't heard of TIPS just because it was developed by a Soviet engineer, Genrich Altshuller. But with the collapse of the USSR, some famous brands began to implement a similar approach. Samsung is a good example.

Use the advice approach for your startup

One of the fundamental laws of TRIZ states that an ideal system is a system that does not exist but fulfills its functions.

You might be thinking that in this sentence, I would say something like, "You need to think about how to reduce the functionality of the product while adding more value to it." But that's not where I'm coming from.

What is exciting is that the most successful products do not reduce the number of features, but rather increase them, which is contrary to the ideal system. So what's the next step?

The product has evolved to reduce the time of use.

In other words, in early versions of the product, the user had to pass a conditional time to get a result. In the second version, it's just 10 minutes. And in the third version, you couldn't do anything and still get results thanks to AI.

This makes an ideal product from a customer's point of view, because they don't spend time on it, but the function is still performed. At the same time, such an approach does not work for time-consuming products: TikTok, Netflix, Instagram, etc.

But insightful or not, there is another side to using TIPS for your startup.

Find problems with known solutions

Another interesting point is that TRIZ is about solving problems, but a startup is about finding problems to solve. So you can try using the mirror TIPS method and start from the end: find a known solution and apply it to a new or unsolved problem.

The fast and cheap Minimum Viable Product Development method is something you can leverage to quickly validate an idea. Is there an example? Tesla did not invent modern electric cars, but offers them as a solution to the global energy crisis and environmental pollution.