In the assigned article for reading from Anna Vital, “How to Start a Start-up”, there were obvious differences from what we’ve been going over the last few weeks about the MVP and at what point does the prototype come into play. But, if you read past that point and LOOK at the infographic it’s pretty amazing. Then if you read other articles that she’s posted, as well as the fact that she has an “Information Design Class” on how to make Infographics listed on the site and you begin to understand that this infographic isn’t just good, but ALL of them are exceptional on the page. This leads to more curious reading of her article with a more appreciative eye.
There is the diamond in the rough of the article, contained in the first section talking about ideation. When brainstorming about ideas you need to “Live in the future”. Anna categorizes ideas into two classes. Ones that are either obvious and hard, or those that are non-obvious. Her example of Elon Musk’s SpaceX because it’s hard but eventually we will need to expand off of the surface of the Earth. The idea seems or seemed a little out there, especially in the beginning, but perhaps rather practical even if we never see it in our lifetime. Contrast that to those that are non-obvious, with UberPool, “the idea that at any given point in time there are at least two people going from about the same location to about the same destination is non-obvious.” This concept launched Uber.
Beyond the description of living in the future, Anna provides an Infographic to explain the phenomenon of what she calls “Schlep Blindness”.
This truly helps to understand your ideas and where you are fishing for them. The infographic helps me to validate this foodnav.net idea, because it’s well beyond the scope of what most people would think of, so I’m not on the crowded boat testing ideas to the same problems, but I’ve ventured beyond that. Am I spear fishing? I think not at this time, but the infographic along with her discussion certainly helps to put things in perspective.