Bring Ideas to Life
Plenty of people are full of big plans; not everyone knows how to make them a reality. Ed Krafcik (MBA’16) specializes in tackling vital questions and implementing practical answers. How do we fix our broken food system? That problem sparked his think- and action-tank, Source My Food, which aims to lower the price of food, while improving health. How do we make cities smarter? Krafcik (above) is helping to find the answer as a director at Soofa, developer of a smart bench that can recharge electronic devices. Here’s how he does it:
1 Take a few hits “Understand the problem through research and reduce your bias by talking to people who are willing to challenge your thinking. I tried to launch a business that would let people buy food directly from farmers, but after talking with tons of people, I realized the problem didn’t actually exist at the consumer level and was much further upstream in the supply chain. I revised my approach and launched Source My Food as a way to unite all kinds of important players—from farmers to distributors to retailers.”
2 Visualize “Use a digital or physical whiteboard to see how the dots are connecting. Having a visual framework helps align your questions and initial answers, and allows new patterns and actionable items to emerge.”
3 Criticize and build “Hold a panel or meeting of diverse minds, and create something tangible for them to criticize and build upon. At Soofa, we bring together a range of team members—from marketing and business development to engineering—to help evaluate ideas for new products before we dive into development. It gets everyone on the same page and helps the product design team understand what implications certain ideas will have for other departments, not just for customer needs. Plus, it taps into the perceptions of your own employees as if they were potential customers.”
4 Regroup “Evaluate the results, and ask yourself if it’s worthwhile to continue and if it’s what the market wants or needs.”
5 Keep owning it “When you introduce your final product or initiative to the world, be ready to lead it. I was so excited when one of my ideas for Soofa was executed that I lost touch with the fact that it still needed to be managed. Just because something you created has launched doesn’t mean your work is done. Continue to own it, recruit the team that’s going to help grow it, and manage the process from start to finish.”
