We often get asked how we came up with the idea for PostEgram. It's a good question.
PostEgram CTO Ken Bloink and I were students at Bizdom U.* Bizdom is an entreprenuer boot camp where folks turn business ideas into business plans. Most Bizdom students enter the program with an idea about the kind of business they want to build. I did not.
One day we did an exercise in class called Disciplined Dreaming. Disciplined Dreaming is a concept (and soon to be published book) developed by the founder and CEO of ePrize, Josh Linkner. Josh is the author of several books. His latest one is on creativity.
Here's how Disciplined Dreaming led to PostEgram.
One day we tried it out at Bizdom U. The first thing my Bizdom instructor, Dan Izzo, did was write down what was important to us in terms of starting a business. For Bizdom students, those things are:
- The business has to be located in the City of Detroit.
- It has to be scaleable.
- And the idea should be launchable for $100,000 or less.
As a class we selected a target audience for a business. We decided to look at senior citizens.
With that in mind, we studied the world around us as it related to the elderly. We looked for trends and inflection points . Inflection points are the points of change. (Like an iPod was an inflection point for how we listen to music.) As a class we noted a rise in the use of technology and social networking. We also noted the demise of newspapers. We also realized that retirees are on fixed incomes. Health issues and loniless also came up.
After we familiarized ourselves with our business guiding principles, our target audience, and our Inflection Points, we tried to connect the dots. We started our "Long List" of business ideas--we had to come up with 100.
Keeping in mind the Inflection Points, a couple of people came up with ideas for teaching the elderly how to use computers or Facebook.
That's the point where the idea for PostEgram came up. I thought of my 78-year-old mother-in-law and how she enjoyed it when I showed her my Facebook account. I knew, however, her objections to owning a computer. It did not interest her. So I came up with a way that she could view Facebook without one!
Lucky for me, Ken thought the idea could work too and he had a printing and programming background.
Here's the thing I think is really cool. Of the 100 ideas we wrote on the board that day, PostEgram was like number 60 or so. I talked to Josh recently and he was explaining that when businesses try to come up with new ideas they will develop maybe 5 ideas. BUT, the long list proves that the deeper you go the fresher the ideas get. As Josh put it "Quantity drives quality."
So there is the long explanation of how we arrived at PostEgram. I felt it was worth giving credit where credit is due. Much thanks to Josh Linkner for his inspiration.
You can learn more about Disciplined Dreaming™: A 5-Step System to Develop and Manage Creativity by downloading a free, short eBook (approximately 2000 words) that explains the system in detail. You’ll enjoy examples, stories, and specific techniques that you can immediately put to use to grow your creative capacity. Click here to get your copy.
*Bizdom is a comprehensive four-month, non-profit, entrepreneur boot camp that trains future entrepreneurs about everything they need to know to start and grow a successful, innovative, Detroit-based business. The program was launched by Dan Gilbert, Founder and Chairman of Quicken Loans Inc. and has been funded by him with assistance from the New Economy Initiative and the Kauffman Foundation. Training is conducted by local entrepreneurs who use their real-world and personal experiences to train participants about the opportunities and challenges they will face as business owners. During the program, participants prepare a business plan for a company, which must be located within the City of Detroit.
