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Solu­tion design for impact start-ups: real­i­ty check for solu­tion ideas

You’ve come to the right place if …

  • you want to found an impact start­up or are already in the mid­dle of it with your team.
  • you already know your tar­get group and their needs.
  • you have test­ed solu­tion ideas for a prob­lem and obtained feed­back.
  • you have built an effect stair­case.

This chap­ter helps to …

  • to con­firm or improve your solu­tion ideas.
  • fur­ther sharp­en your impact log­ic and refine the impact lad­der.
  • pri­or­i­tize the next steps.

Val­i­date assump­tions about your solu­tion ideas

By sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly check­ing your assump­tions and com­par­ing them with the find­ings from inter­views, you can refine your ideas, set pri­or­i­ties and devel­op a coher­ent impact log­ic. We rec­om­mend the fol­low­ing three steps:

1. sort your inter­view data and form clus­ters

Col­lect and note down all state­ments, obser­va­tions and quotes from the inter­views on post-its or in dig­i­tal notes.

Group sim­i­lar state­ments and iden­ti­fy recur­ring themes and pat­terns. By form­ing top­ic clus­ters, you can cat­e­go­rize insights to help pri­or­i­tize and iden­ti­fy which solu­tion idea res­onat­ed most.

2. check your assump­tions crit­i­cal­ly

Check the assump­tions you have made about your solu­tion idea. Do the state­ments from the inter­views match your research and your con­sid­er­a­tions?

3. refine your impact log­ic with the help of the impact lad­der

Use the impact stair­case already cre­at­ed in the chap­ter “Solu­tion design: Find­ing a solu­tion with which a start­up cre­ates impact“to clear­ly illus­trate the indi­vid­ual steps from prob­lem to solu­tion to impact and ensure that your impact log­ic is coher­ent. Sup­ple­ment and update your impact stair­case with the val­i­dat­ed find­ings about your solu­tion. These impact goals are the basis for the sub­se­quent impact mea­sure­ment.

Effort-Impact-Matrix: Are your solu­tion ideas fea­si­ble?

The Effort-Impact-Matrix helps you to find out which of your ideas promise the great­est ben­e­fit for a rea­son­able use of resources. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant for social enter­pris­es with lim­it­ed resources. You can esti­mate the impact and the resources required through the inter­views and a rough cal­cu­la­tion of the inputs.

1. defines the X and Y axes

  • X‑axis (Effort/​feasibility): This is about the effort required for imple­men­ta­tion — be it time, costs, resources or tech­ni­cal com­plex­i­ty, from “high effort/​difficult to imple­ment” (right) to “low effort/​easy to imple­ment” (left).
  • Y‑axis (impact): This axis rep­re­sents the poten­tial social impact of your solu­tion, from “low impact” (bot­tom) to “high impact” (top).

2. eval­u­ate and posi­tion your ideas

  • Eval­u­ate each of your ideas based on the two cri­te­ria “Impact” and “Effort”:
  • Impact: What is the expect­ed ben­e­fit or effect of the solu­tion?
  • Effort/​feasibility: How dif­fi­cult or resource-inten­sive is the imple­men­ta­tion?
  • Place your solu­tions on the matrix accord­ing­ly.

3. pri­or­i­tize your solu­tions

  • Quick wins (top left): High impact, low effort — you should tack­le these solu­tions first. They are rel­a­tive­ly easy to imple­ment and bring great ben­e­fits.
  • Major projects (top right): High impact, high effort — These solu­tions are worth­while, but they require sig­nif­i­cant resources and plan­ning. You should pri­or­i­tize them accord­ing to the quick wins.
  • Fill-ins (bot­tom left): Low impact, low effort — You can imple­ment these solu­tions if you have time and resources to spare, but they are not cru­cial.
  • Thank­less tasks (bot­tom right): Low impact, high effort — these solu­tions are best avoid­ed as the effort does not jus­ti­fy the ben­e­fit.

Next chap­ter: Devel­op­ing a pro­to­type

Can you clear­ly name and prove the prob­lem, the tar­get group and the impact ? And you have devel­oped an accept­ed solu­tion? Won­der­ful. Do you also have all the finan­cial, human and tech­ni­cal resources you need to devel­op a pro­to­type?

If all this applies, you can go to pro­to­typ­ing pro­ceed to pro­to­typ­ing.