The Business IDEA template

The form consists of four major sections:

Idea title and problem being solved: the ideator is asked to provide a ‘Title’ for the idea - a short sentence that reflects its essence, e.g. A connected wearable device that measures and reports the level of noise in the user’s environment. The ‘problem being solved’ prompts the ideator to describe the situation - the context in which the idea provides value - e.g. when users are concerned about being frequently exposed to increased noise levels.

The ‘Users, Value & Form Factors’ section captures the users or customers impacted by the problem being solved - e.g. field workers. The ‘Value for the users’ prompts the ideator to describe how the primary users get value from the idea - e.g. the field workers can better protect themselves by controlling their systematic exposure to loud noise. The ‘Value for the company’ asks the ideator to describe how the company would get value - e.g. by monetizing the app via subscriptions or as part of an ecosystem of services. The ‘Form Factors’ element refers to the shapes that the idea could take if implemented - e.g. a mobile app or a website.

The ‘Logic’ describes how the idea solves the problem and how the users will benefit from it - e.g. by notifying the user in case of excessive exposure to an increased level of noise. The ideator lists here all the essential information on how the idea would work - e.g. the technicalities, the data involved, the hardware required, etc.

The ‘Big Unknowns’ enables the ideator to list all the identified sources of uncertainty and the big questions that need to be answered.