When a child begins learning, it starts questioning everything. Their problem starts with what? As a business owner, we should follow the same habit. We already know the basics so start with WHY question.

“No one is dumb who is curious. The people who don’t ask questions remain clueless throughout their lives.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson

As a business owner, the word “WHY “should be your best friend.

Why are you doing it?

It’s not what you do it’s why you do it. Planning to invent the wheel again!!! Think again. WHY you are investing energy in things that already developed. The problem isn’t that you are inventing the wheel. The problem is WHY you were inventing the wheel when it was invented long ago.

Starting a business is same as inventing wheel until you answer WHY. The unique selling point of your company lays in the response of WHY. It always leads you to think out of the Box & your imagination does the rest. Innovation comes in as a Byproduct of answering the WHY question.

Starting an Ecommerce business just because everyone is doing it, is not a good idea. WHY are you starting a new one?

Let’s talk some possible USPs & Innovation comes in a way of achieving USPs.

WHY to start an Online Business

  • The current sites do not provide “particular product”.

WHY aren’t they selling a current product? There comes the innovation as there could be some limitations to offer the product online, and you need some innovation to provide it online.

  • Current website “Delivery time is very high”.

WHY delivery time is high? There could be many reasons starting with limited resources that you probably won’t have either so innovate to deliver in less time with limited resource.

  • Current website has “Bad Customer support.”

WHY customer support isn’t good? Lack of support knowledge & training can be the substantial reason for inadequate customer support. You have to be innovative as if achieving proper support is easy, Existing players already doing it.

For me, every business idea starts with WHY & often end with WHY because many times I do not have sufficient knowledge to answer or innovate.

As, said earlier it’s not what you do, it’s WHY you do it. People don’t care what & how you are doing it until they know WHY you are doing it. Your answer of WHY should revolve around the value of target audience.

Add WHY in every step of your business plan. It will help you to identify difficulties you face in executing your business idea.

If all these things seem too bookish Just be with me.

Real life examples of WHY.

For one of my client, I analyze many projects on crowd funding websites (The place I learned WHY game) Every successful campaign have one similarity. It emphasizes on WHY.

Coolest Cooler

One of the most funded KickStarter project. There are many reasons for this successful project, but we just stick with our core subject WHY.

Coolers are already available in the market. So WHY Coolest Cooler is so successful? You answer hidden in first few lines of campaign intro.

“Regular coolers are dull, break easily & a hassle to haul around just to carry the ice.”

WHY Rayn invented new Cooler? because old ones are

  • Boring
  • Break Easily
  • Hassle to carry just for Ice

The WHY leads him to innovation:

  • Boring // Bluetooth Speakers
  • Break Easily // Quality
  • Carry only Ice // Led Light, Cooler divider=cutting board, Rechargeable blenders, Led light & much more.

The Dash

The Dash is another successful project in Kickstarter. It’s successful because it takes hassle out of listing music.

WHY Listening music with headphone is hassle? Because

  • Cables,
  • Break due to wires,
  • Carry smartphone along with headphones.

Innovation:

  • Cables // Cordless
  • No cables // less chance to break + in-ear
  • Carry smartphone // Bluetooth + Inbuilt memory & many more features.

OUYA

Creating a gaming console, you probably stupid until you are big enough to compete with Sony. But OUYA did it by answering the series of WHY.

WHY Game developers are moving to mobile games?

  • It’s developer friendly.

WHY we need to save TV gaming? Because

  • we all love it.

They can wait to see slow death of TV gaming, but there love inspire them to connect the dots with answering WHYs

The innovation = Android Gaming TV console.

Anova Precision Cooker

The only WHY I found in this campaign is, Its Cost effective as everything is already in place but didn’t accessible to the majority of people. Product Price range from $600 – $1000 But they innovate to cut the price. Anova Precision Cooker only cost $174.

End Notes

To be successful, you have to start questioning each & everything during your business cycle. Especially questions start with WHY.

The common question that gets asked in business is, ‘why?’ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‘why not?’ – Jeff Bezos