Sanity check for your ideas

July 4th, 2007 by Klaus Wiedemann

Surfing the Internet I just stumbled upon an interesting podcast interview with Chip Heath, Co-Author of “Made to Stick”, who is talking with the guys from the iinovate blog.

Haven’t read the book yet (which is now on my “to read list”), Chip is explaining in the interview more about the ingredients which make an idea stick, both with customers, investors or employees.

Sticky ideas are the result of 6 key attributes: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions and stories (SUCCES).

Whenever I am talking to founders looking for help with their business plans and with fund-raising, a lot of them usually focus on concreteness and credibility, but tend to neglegt the fact that investors (and other people they want to adress) usually do not just judge an idea rationally.

“I like that idea” is based more on emotions then anything else. So the six attributes listed above might be a good santity check for your next pitch with investors or customers.