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Solu­tion design for impact star­tups: Real­i­ty check for your ideas

This sec­tion is for you if …

  • you’re plan­ning to launch an impact start­up or are already work­ing on one with your team.
  • you under­stand your tar­get group and their needs.
  • you’ve test­ed your solu­tion ideas and col­lect­ed feed­back.
  • you’ve cre­at­ed an Impact Lad­der.

In this sec­tion, you’ll learn how to …

  • con­firm or improve your solu­tion ideas.
  • sharp­en your impact log­ic and refine your Impact Lad­der.
  • pri­or­i­tize your next steps.

Val­i­date your assump­tions about your solu­tion ideas

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

1. Group your inter­view insights by top­ic

Col­lect and note down all state­ments, obser­va­tions, and quotes from your inter­views – either on sticky notes or in a dig­i­tal for­mat.

Group sim­i­lar respons­es and iden­ti­fy recur­ring themes and pat­terns. These clus­ters help you struc­ture your insights, set pri­or­i­ties, and see which ideas res­onat­ed most with your audi­ence.

2. Review your assump­tions crit­i­cal­ly

Take a close look at the assump­tions you’ve made about your solu­tion. Do the inter­view respons­es align with your research and expec­ta­tions?

3. Refine your impact log­ic using your Impact Lad­der

Use the Impact Lad­der you cre­at­ed in “Solu­tion design: Cre­at­ing a solu­tion that dri­ves real impact“to map the path from prob­lem to solu­tion to impact and ensure that your impact log­ic is coher­ent. Sup­ple­ment and update your Impact Lad­der with your val­i­dat­ed insights – these impact goals will lat­er guide your impact mea­sure­ment.

Effort-impact matrix: are your ideas worth imple­ment­ing?

To see which of your ideas offer the most val­ue for a rea­son­able amount of effort, use the effort-impact-matrix. This tool is espe­cial­ly help­ful for social star­tups with lim­it­ed resources. You can esti­mate impact and effort based on your inter­view find­ings and a rough input cal­cu­la­tion.

1. Define the X and Y axes

  • X‑axis (Effort/​feasibility): This mea­sures how dif­fi­cult an idea is to implement—consider time, cost, required resources, or tech­ni­cal com­plex­i­ty. The scale runs from “high effort/​difficult to imple­ment” (right) to “low effort/​easy to imple­ment” (left).
  • Y‑axis (impact): This rep­re­sents the poten­tial social impact of your idea, from “low impact” (bot­tom) to “high impact” (top).

2. Assess and place your ideas

  • Eval­u­ate each of your ideas using the two cri­te­ria:
  • Impact: How much ben­e­fit or change could the idea gen­er­ate?
  • Effort/​feasibility: How com­plex, cost­ly, or resource-inten­sive is it to imple­ment?
  • Then, plot each idea on the matrix accord­ing­ly.

3. Pri­or­i­tize your solu­tions

  • Quick wins (top left): High impact, low effort – start here. These ideas are easy to imple­ment and deliv­er big results.
  • Major projects (top right): High impact, high effort. These projects are worth doing, but they need care­ful plan­ning and sig­nif­i­cant resources.
  • Fill-ins (bot­tom left): Low impact, low effort – Nice-to-haves if you have extra time or capac­i­ty.
  • Thank­less tasks (bot­tom right): Low impact, high effort – best avoid­ed; they’re not worth the invest­ment.
    .

Next chap­ter: Build your pro­to­type

Can you clear­ly define the prob­lem, tar­get group, and expect­ed impact, and back it all up with data? Have you devel­oped a solu­tion idea that’s been well received? Great. Do you also have the finan­cial, tech­ni­cal, and human resources you’ll need?

If so, you’re ready to move on to pro­to­typ­ing .