Validate Product Features like a Veteran Security Founder
⭐ The goal of this course is to guide you through a repeatable framework for ideating and validating product ideas for your security startup.
We’ll use videos like this one to walk you step-by-step through each exercise. And you can return to these videos anytime you need a refresher.
While guiding you step-by-step through the exercises, we’ll use a fictitious company called “Acme Security”.
There are only a few supplies you’ll need.
- Printed Innovation worksheets
(We’ve provided a worksheet for each exercise, so you’ll want to print those out.)
- A Timer
(To help you practice quick thinking, and to keep the momentum going, you’ll want to use a timer. The one on your phone will work perfectly.)
- A pen and sticky notes
(You’ll also want a pen and some sticky notes. (our worksheets are designed for these small stickies, but you can use full sized stickies)
🎬 Once you have those supplies together, you are ready to get started with the first lesson.
A. Customer Problems
1. Choose Your Customer Type
Close your eyes and consider your customers. Think about the different customer types you have.
Maybe it's a specific industry you serve, like HR or Fintech, or maybe it's a role at the company that your customer is in, like CISOs, or Cloud Architects. Maybe your customers are analysts or compliance officers.
In our example, we've chosen Dev Ops for our customer type.
Okay, what is your most profitable customer type? Have you got it? Great!
🎬 Go ahead and write that customer type on your worksheet now
2. Brainstorm Customer Problems
All right, it's time for action!
Now that you have your customer type, let's focus on problems that customer might have.
We're going to use one of our favorite brainstorming techniques.
For this, you'll need
- the customer problems worksheet
- some small stickies
- a pen
- and a timer
Set a timer for three minutes and the stopwatch on your phone is just fine. Write down as many customer problems as you can think of.
You may have even heard your customers mention a problem they need to solve.
Problems like:
- Difficulty managing secrets and credentials across environments
- Struggle to maintain visibility across microservices
- Difficulty implementing zero-trust architecture in dynamic environments
Now remember our rules for brainstorming
- one idea per sticky
- create as many ideas as you can
(and don't worry about if they're good or not – if you think it write it down)
- don't stop writing until the time is up
(if you get stuck write any nonsensical word like “platypus” or “banana peel” this will unstick your brain)
🎬 Again, set a timer for three minutes and try to come up with at least 8 customer problems that you don't yet solve.
3. Select Your 3 Best Problems to Solve
Do you have eight or more customer problems?
Great, now give your stickies a quiet read and pick your top three problems you think you can best solve.
In our example company, Acme Security had these problems.
- Difficulty managing secrets and credentials across environments
- Struggle to maintain visibility across microservices
- Difficulty implementing zero-trust architecture in dynamic environments
🎬 Now that you've selected your top three problems you want to solve, transfer those stickies to the worksheet and tear up the other stickies.
Now that you've identified the problems your customers need to solve, the next exercise will focus on turning those problems into opportunities.
B. Opportunities
1. Turn Problems in How Might Wes
Hopefully, you’ve had a little time to think about the top 3 customer needs you could address. Awesome!
Now we’ll turn these customer problems into opportunities by transforming them into “How Might We”s. How Might We’s do a great job of reframing the problem into a question that helps you brainstorm.
Here are some examples of turning our customer problems into How Might We’s.
Back to our example project, the first problem is that Devon the Devops has difficulty managing secrets and credentials across environments. We will reframe the problem by saying, “How Might We: simplify managing secrets and credentials across environments?”
Our next problem is that Dev Ops struggle to maintain visibility across microservices. This will be changed to, “How Might We: increase visibility across microservices”
Our last problem is that Devon is struggling to implement zero-trust architecture in dynamic environments, which will become, “How Might We: simplify implementing zero-trust architecture in dynamic environments?”
Grab a few stickies and write "How Might We" (Or, "HMW") in the top left corner. Then re-write your 3 problems as How Might We’s.
🎬 Rewrite your 3 problems as How Might We’s
2. Brainstorm Solutions to Your HMWs
Now that you’ve reframed the problems, it's time to brainstorm some solutions to each problem.
This brainstorm is just like the one from the Customer Problems exercise.
With the same brainstorming rules:
- 3 minutes on the clock,
- 1 idea per sticky, and
- Don’t stop writing until the time is up.
Remember this first brainstorm is only for your first How Might We.
Grab your pen and stickies and take 3 min to come up with at least 5 products or services to address your customers’ first problem. Ready? Get going.
🎬 Start a 3-minute timer to come up with at least 5 product or service ideas to address your customer’s 1st How Might We.
3. Brainstorm More Solutions to Your HMWs
Good job on the first How Might We.
In our example, we came up with
- Secrets rotation automation
- AI-powered anomaly detection
- Environment-specific encryption keys
It's time to do it again for the second and third How Might We.
The same rules apply with 3 minutes on the clock and as many ideas as possible.
Brainstorm for 3 minutes on products or services you could create to solve the 2nd How Might We, and brainstorm one more time on your 3rd How Might We.
🎬 Start a 3-minute timer and brainstorm on your 2nd HMW.
🎬 Then start another 3-minute timer and brainstorm on your 3rd HMW.
4. Select your Best Idea for Each HMW
You should now have several ideas for each How Might We. It's time to select the best ones now.
🎬 Move your best 2 ideas for each How Might We to the worksheet and stick them under their prompt.
You should now have 2 ideas per column… totaling 6 ideas. The rest of your ideas that didn’t make it are distractions. So give yourself permission to focus and rip them up.
🎬 Rip up the ideas that didn’t make it onto your sheet.
Great job at coming up with a bunch of ideas quickly. We will validate those ideas in the next exercise – Gut Check.
C. Gut Check
Sometimes making a good decision comes down to an unexplainable gut feeling. Gut reactions are the fastest way to make a good decision – and our exercise, Gut Check, does just that.
Before bringing your idea to your team, it is best to see if your product or service idea passes the Gut Check.
First, you need to choose the best product or service idea. After filling out the Opportunities worksheet, from the last exercise you should have several ideas on each “How Might We” that you created.
Read over your ideas and choose the strongest one.
(Look for the idea that can have the highest impact for your customer.)
Now is a great time to give that idea a codename. Don't overthink it, and don’t stress over finding the perfect name. You just need a name to refer to when you talk about your product idea with others.
Ok. Go ahead and name your idea now.
Now that you have chosen the strongest idea, it is time to put the Gut Check in place by asking 4 simple questions.
- “Could this solve your customer’s problem?”.
- Could this be technically feasible?
- “Could this make financial sense?”.
- “Do you believe in the idea?”
This is meant to be a very objective question. The idea could solve a problem and make money but if you don’t believe in it it will fail.
This is the gut check. If you answered “no” to any of these questions, then pick a different idea to pursue. An idea that doesn’t pass the gut check will ultimately fail and waste everyone’s time.
🎬 If you had 4 “yeses”, then you are ready to share your ideas with your team.
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