In this episode, we talk about how to create an elegant solution for your customers and your market. An elegant solution is the simplest way to get the
greatest impact. It should be something that can withstand time and get the attention of the marketplace. It’s the “Aha!” solution.

An elegant solution will serve your market at three levels:

Level 1: Dealing with the known and spoken problems.

These are the things that are commonly known and talked about. Even though everyone is talking about it, we need to come up with a solution.

Level 2: Dealing with the known and unspoken problems.

These are the things that are not commonly talked about. It takes work, research and understanding to get to the bottom of this.

Level 3: Dealing with the unknown and unspoken problems.

These are the things that aren’t even thought about. People aren’t simply aware of these problems but they are coming at them.

Concept of IDEA Loops

IDEA loops are used to constantly refine products and services. There are several questions you need to ask along the way.

Investigate:
It’s about questioning, studying and understanding.

Questions:

• What are you trying to do and why?

· What are the facts and issues that surround not only the solution but also the problem?

· What is the problem and its cause which is seen after the investigation?

Design:
It is about creation and design of the solution, product and service to answer the three levels of problems.

Questions:

• What does the perfect solution looks like?
• What ideas exist for achieving it?

· What is the best solution that you see right now?

Execute:
Going out and delivering from the context of getting feedback and testing.

Questions:

• What would you expect to happen?
• How are you going to test the solution?
• What is the response?

Adjust:
Reflecting on what has happened in terms of results and feedbacks and ways to change it.

Questions:

• What did and didn’t work and why?
• What do we need to do next?
• Do we need to re-design it?

— Begin Transcript —

Hey there I’m Mel Abraham, the author of The Entrepreneur’s Solution and the founder of Business Breakthrough Academy where we teach you how to design a
business and create a life. And welcome back to this episode of the Entrepreneur’s Solution Show. We’re going to continue in this episode on dealing with,
we just finished talking about the obstacles you may be challenged with as you start to build your business or you’re in business and you’re trying to
launch a new product and some of those things.

Now, what I want to do is go into this part 2, if you will of “How do you create an elegant solution?”

So, after we come back from this brief introduction, I want to talk about how do you create an elegant solution that can connect and serves your
marketplace?

Hey there welcome back, I’m Mel Abraham, the author of The Entrepreneur’s Solution, the founder of Business Breakthrough Academy where we teach you how to
design a business and create a life: A life of financial freedom and peace of mind.

And so welcome back to this episode. Then as I said we’re going to talk about:

· How do you create an elegant solution for your customers? For your market? And

· How do you take what it is, your idea, your product, your services and make it where it stands out from the perspective of how it’s delivered?

So, let’s dive right in and look at this.

Well, Mel you’re talking about this thing, this elegant solution—what is an elegant solution?

The way I look at, it is the simplest way to get the greatest impact. So whatever it is you’re creating, whether it’s to solve cleaning a floor or doing
something that is rehabbing a back. Whatever it is, what’s the simplest way to move the needle, to have the greatest impact? That’s where the elegant comes
in.

When we look at an elegant solution, in order for it to truly be a solution and for it to be elegant, I think it needs to be enduring. In other words it’s
not something that is sporadic or is time-driven. That it’s something that will withstand the time. It’s not transient, if you will, as we go.

And into really, really be something that gets the attention of the marketplace when someone hears you describe your solution, or hears you describe your
product. When you’re pitching it to an angel funding group or you’re putting together your Kickstarter video or you’re doing something from the stage and
they talk about the solution.

It’s that moment where your market, or your audience, or your customers, or your clients will go, “Aha!” and that that is when you know that you nailed it.
So, it’s the “Aha Solution” in your market’s eyes when we look at it.

So, what is it tactically? How is it strategically? What do we need to think about?

– Well, from my perspective I believe that an elegant solution will serve your market at three levels.

And so, the first level is dealing with the known and spoken problems that exist in the market.

These are the things that are commonly known, commonly spoken about that when all of the industry people get together—this is the buzz, this is what
they’re talking about, the things that they are struggling with. Whether it’s getting customers or getting financing. It is common knowledge. It’s really
clearly easily found information.

We will still need to solve that problem, even though everyone is talking about it we need to come up with a solution for it. So, level 1 is this known and
spoken problem. It’s the thing that everyone is chatting around the water cooler about.

Then we go to level 2. Level is 2 is the known and unspoken problems.

These are the things that are going on inside of their heads. This is the stuff that is keeping them up at night but they’re afraid to talk about it. This
is the thing that if you mention it, they’re going to look at you and say, “Are you eavesdropping on me? Are you in my mind? Are you reading my mind?”

They’re going to feel like you’re inside of them. But they’re also going to feel like you’re one of them because they’re going to realize that you
understand them.

Now this takes some work in the sense of research and study and analysis and communication and surveys to really start to get to the bottom of this. It’s
about understanding it in a way where you can deal with those known and unspoken problems.

Now many times, the known and unspoken problems revolve around self-esteem, self-effectiveness, self-determination; all these things about good enough and
the imposter syndrome that they’re really afraid to come up with it. They may be even fear based in the context of, “I don’t want to expose myself that
way. I don’t want to look that vulnerable”.

But when you come to the marketplace and say to them, “I understand, I empathize, I understand, I know what it’s like, I’ve been there” and you speak not
only of the problem but you give them the solution.

Now you’re dealing with not only the level 1 problem of known and spoken that everyone knows but you’re dealing with the level 2 problem of known and
unspoken, the thing that is keeping them up at night, that’s driving them crazy, that’s really causing them to stir and stress and anxiety and suffer in
some cases. That gets them to really get their attention and say, “I think this person knows me”.

Now remember all of this is under the foundation of delivering on the customer promise and if you can speak to level 1 and level 2 problems first, you can
deliver on a customer promise at a far greater level.

But what really starts to drive the card faster is when you can speak to the level 3 problem which is the what we call, the unknown unspoken problem.

This is the thing that they don’t even realize is coming down the tracks at them. This is the thing that they haven’t even thought about. This is the
element that when you talk about it and say,

• “Let me tell you what’s happening.”
• “Let me give you a different perspective.”

· “Let me shed some light on where you are right now.”, and

• “Let me give you a picture of where it’s going”.

And if we don’t get this solved, let me tell you what happens. Now, what that does is that you now look in their eyes and in their eyes you look like this
savior of sorts that says, “Wow, I’m glad I met you because I would have never thought about that and this is going to save me from that fiasco.”

So, this level 3 problem is something that they are not even aware about but what it allows you to do is elevate yourself to a level of expert, to a level
of beyond that where you serve them on the three levels of:

· Level 1 problems being known and spoken, the things that are that they know about, that they’re struggling with daily, and then

· The level 2 problems of known and unspoken which they’re afraid to talk about, that there isn’t a dialogue, there isn’t any communication about but now
you’ve come to them and said, “I understand, I’m with you and we can help”.

· And then you elevate above that and sign the light on something they haven’t even though about but you give them the solution for that.

So, when we talk about this concept of an elegant solution, remember simplest with greatest impact, it’s the “Aha” solution, it’s enduring not transient,
it’s serves the market on three levels and then the last I think the characteristic of your solution is that it needs to be easy to implement.

• It really is something that,
• If it’s too difficult to implement,
• If there’s too much work involved,
• Too much struggle involved,
• Too much complexity involved.

It’s something that may be a great solution but it’s not going to get used because it’s too difficult to implement.

So, that’s what an elegant solution is, that’s what we’re striving for when we talk about creating products or services

• That serve a market need,
• That serve it at the highest level,

· That creates distinction in the marketspace, in the marketplace.

And when you get that right you will work forward through this process.

Now, so how do we come up with that and one of the things that I want to kind of go through is this framework that, it’s a framework that actually Toyota’s
used for a lot of years and I think that it serves here is this concept of IDEA loops, if you will and idea stands for Investigate, Design, Execute and Adjust. So, it’s this IDEA loop that you’re constantly
in to refine your products and services over and over and over again. And there’s a set of questions and things that you go through.

Now, all of this actually is in the downloadable guidebook that you can get from the links that I give you. In fact, in this show it’s going to be MelAbraham.com/012 will get you to the page where you can get you to the downloads.

And if you’re again if you’re on your phone and you’re not at the computer, go ahead and text MYLEGACY, M-Y-L-E-G-A-C-Y one word no spaces to 38470 and you
can get the downloads for the guidebook that will help you through this process.

But so what we want to talk about is this concept of idea loops to create the elegant solution and again, IDEA stands for Investigate, Design and investigate is really about questioning and serving and studying and understanding.

Then design is about the creation, the solution, the design of the solution, the product, the service in a way that answers those three levels of
problems, the unknown, all the way up to the unknown-unspoken problem and from the known and spoken problem.

And then execute is about going out and delivering but that delivering from the context of getting feedback and testing. So, it’s about testing it
so you can then refine it which is the last part of the idea loops which is Adjust, which is reflecting on what has happened, what’s transpired,
what were the results, what was the feedback and how we can then change it, shift it and do it all again.

So, we’re constantly in this constant state of this IDEA loop to continue to refine it until we get to an elegant solution that’s deliverable, that’s easy
to implement that really, serves the audience.

So, let’s just take a moment real quickly to go through each of the elements of the IDEA loop and talk about may be the three major questions that you’re
going to answer here.

The first part of the IDEA loop is the investigate which is about, like I said about questioning.

Well, ask yourself this:

• What are you trying to do and why?
• What is it you’re trying to solve?
• What problem, what issue, what challenge? And
• Why is it something that you’re trying to solve?
• Why is it that they’re willing to pay for it?

All of those elements come into play here. We want to investigate and ask all the questions to make sure that this is a viable solution and not only viable
but a valuable solution to the marketplace because if it’s not valuable it’s not going to be commercially viable and in other words, someone is not going
to pay for it.

And so we can come up with great solutions but if no one’s willing to pay for it then it’s not worth anything and it’s not something you’re going to be
able to build a business on.

What are the facts and issues that surround not only the solution but the problem?

And make sure that you’re looking at it from a bunch of different perspectives and bunch of different angels and say, “What if? What if? What could this
be? What else could this be?” Keep asking the questions until you have a supreme command over the issues, the problems, the challenges and the desire and
the needs of your customers.

What’s the problem and cause of it as you see it after you’ve done the investigation?

So, I think those are the three major questions in the investigate section of the IDEA loop. Then we go to the design part of this.

This is where we’re creating and solving the problem. So, we’re going to kind of design what it looks like and I like to go from a zeroed based kind of no
budget perspective. So, the first question is:

What does the perfect solution looks like?

Putting complete limits around it, not putting any limits around it I mean. Not putting boundaries around it, what if you could solve it with no parameters
on budget or time or anything. What does the perfect solution look like? And at least, get a visual of that first and work from there to form your
solution.

Then ask yourself this next question of, “What ideas exists for achieving it?”

If that’s the perfect solution, what exists now for possibly achieving that? You look at Zipcar. Zipcar was a solution for … most of the rental cars
historically in the United States have always be done by on a daily rate basis and the founder of Zipcar, she saw when she was travelling Europe that they
had the ability to rent their cars for an hour, two hours, three hours—on an hourly basis versus a daily rate basis.

And she brought that back to the United States thinking, “All I got to do is I combine mobile internet and car rental.”

So, she didn’t really create anything new, she just combined current capabilities and capacities in a different way to achieve the results that she wanted
to achieve. So, what ideas exists for achieving it?

You want to look outside your industry and look at a lot of different things to see is there something similar that if we look at it and tweak it we might
be feel adapted to the solution we’re looking at.

And then, once we’ve gone through that as you sit there based on the current capabilities and the capacities that you have, the perfect solution, the
constraints that might exist, “What is the best solution that you see right now?”

And design that and work from that because in the next phase when we go to execute, this is when we’re going to turn around and test it. So, now we’re
going to go back out to the market and say, “All right, here’s our solution”.

Now before you go out there, let’s define what success is. Let’s define what you expect to happen which is really what the first question is.

• What would you expect to happen?
• What would you expect to see when you do this?

And then set up a control of how you want to test the solution which is the second question.

How are you going to test the solution?

And then gage and measure the scope of impact you solution has. What is the response? And you want the response to be transparent, honest, sincere and
authentic. We don’t what them to just blow smoke our way just because that’s what we want to hear.

If it’s something that they love the solution, but they’re not willing to pay for it, you’re better off knowing about it upfront than going and investing a
lot of time into a product that they love but they’re not willing to pay for.

And then once we’ve done this execute piece, now we can then reflect all the data, all the information, all the information that came in and ask ourselves
in this adjust phase which is the last part of the idea loop before we start it over again. Reflect on it and ask ourselves:

What did and didn’t work and why?

And pull and dissect those learnings out of it. Many times when a product doesn’t work, people think it is failure. Well, one of the greatest failures of
our time became one of the greatest successes of our time: Post-it notes.

They were not trying to invent Post-it notes at the time. When he was trying to invent Post-it notes, he was actually trying to invent a permanent adhesive
and he failed miserably. But then they found another use for it.

So, what didn’t work and why? Look at it as a feedback process to start to analyze and look at how else it can be used or what else needs to be done. Then
what adjustments can you make to it based upon the information.

· And then the last thing is, all right what are the next steps?

• What do we need to do next?
• How do we need to take this to the next stage?
• What’s the next step?
• Do we have the solution?
• Are we ready to go to market?
• Or do we need some more tweaking?
• Do we need to re-design it?

o Re-investigate?

o Re-design?

o And Re-execute it again?

o Go through the idea loop again to see if it makes sense?

And so, really that’s the process of really trying to come up with your elegant idea or your elegant solution. Remember, this concept of serving your
market at a higher level. Serving your market and solving problems at three levels—level 1, 2 and 3.

• The known and spoken problem.
• The known and unspoken problem.
• The unknown and unspoken problem.

Making sure that you’ve come up with something that is the simplest way to implement the solution but has the greatest impact and make sure that it is
enduring in a transient and simple to implement and use the IDEA loop as the vehicle in which you start to develop these things because now you’ll have a
process in place that is going to force you through the process of trying to create something without, without just going out there flippantly and throwing
things at their to see what sticks but doing it:

• With a strategy,
• With the tactics,
• With a process in place.

That is going to inform you all along the way. So, when you do actually go out the market:

• You’ve got proof of concept,
• You’ve got data to support it,

· You’ve got study and information that will help support it.

And now when we get into the next phase and start thinking about financing and building it, we have all this information available to us and we’ve created
a product that is the elegant solution.

So, I hope this helps you start to understand how to bring elegance into your solutions, into your products, into your services and into your business.
Just the beginning but I think it’s a good start for you and I hope that you found this of value and if you haven’t done it yet make sure that you
subscribe so you get the next episode, or you constantly get notified of the episodes as they come out.

And why not tell a friend? Let’s share this with the community.

I truly believe that entrepreneurship is the new paradigm of our future. It’s not the industrial age anymore. There’re so many people that are looking for
new way to take control of their life, build on possibility, create something that is of their dreams in their own control and entrepreneurship is the
path.

And so, I want to be your entrepreneurial mentor and help your friends along the way. So, share it with your friends, share it with your family that, so
that we can serve them just the same.

And again, if you want to get the guidebook that will take you through this process, downloadable guidebook go to MelAbraham.com/012 or go ahead and text MYLEGACY one-word to 38470.

And until we get a chance to see each other again,

May your vision be grand, your journey epic and your legacy significant!

See you soon!!

— End Transcript —

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Like this? Please share it and help a few more people bring their dreams out of the darkness and give life to them again. Cheers, Mel

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