CHAPTER 5

GAIN

Most entrepreneurial ideas will sound crazy, stupid and uneconomic, and then they’ll turn out to be right.

REED HASTINGS, CEO, NETFLIX

For a short while, I thought I might want to teach children, or at least that was the career my mother had planned for me. During college I was a student teacher in a sixth-grade classroom in New York City. After that experience I declared grade school teachers to be saints. I quickly abandoned that career path, following my own goal of being a designer and artist. Eventually I did become an educator—in higher education. So it wasn’t teaching itself that dissuaded me back then. In fact, I am passionate about teaching my university students.

In that sixth-grade classroom, one boy would hold onto my ankle for the entire class. Another would cry repeatedly. I didn’t feel adequately prepared to deal with the vastness of the emotional issues the children brought to the classroom. Unfortunately, there are still far too many children worldwide who face difficulties, or even trauma, stemming from poverty, racism, community or domestic violence, world crises, substance abuse at home, or food insecurity, as well as organic mental or physical disorders or issues that interfere with learning. What I realized in my short time in the sixth-grade classroom is the critical need for good ideas that would help children. Here are two examples of worthwhile ideas.

Disney Pixar’s goal for its film Inside Out was to portray a range of emotions so that children could easily understand their own feelings. The film’s message is that emotions are important and need to be recognized and validated. That message filled a critical gap in children’s film entertainment as well as in the emotional lives of children. The story goes like this: Through the interplay of emotions—Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness—eleven-year-old Riley, the main character, is striving to achieve emotional balance while navigating a move to a new city, house, and school. The gain: helping children identify different emotions to help them better understand what they’re feeling. The film also can help parents recognize, accept, and validate their child’s emotions.

Samantha Pratt, the CEO and founder of the online platform KlickEngage, had a similar goal—to help all students feel psychologically safe and supported in every environment. KlickEngage achieves this “by amplifying the voices of youth, promoting socio-emotional well-being, and increasing the effectiveness of existing interventions through technology.”¹ Students who log into Klick-Engage for a daily check-in are prompted to “answer 5 simple questions to capture their mood snapshot. It takes fewer than two minutes. Evidence-based color groups help students make sense of the complex emotions. Word associations support expression and connect classrooms through a shared vocabulary. Coping tips help students identify strategies to decompress and release feelings.”² There are KlickEngage teacher and administrative tools so that teachers and administrators can provide proper support as well as data-driven interventions. There are gains for all involved.

Pratt believes that “unless we address all of the needs of a child and their community, we cannot expect to achieve educational equity.”³

So, what do the ideas underlying Disney Pixar’s film Inside Out and KlickEngage have in common? Their goals of addressing the emotional needs of children fill a gap. The gain? Both ideas help children tremendously.

Once you’ve set a goal and determined whether it fills a gap, assess whether there is a gain—a benefit or advantage for people or our planet. Like Samantha Pratt, Kennyjie had a goal of solving an endemic problem. As a twelve-year-old living in Indonesia, Kennyjie contracted dengue fever—a flu-like disease transmitted by mosquitoes. In adulthood, as an industrial designer, Kennyjie noticed that mosquito prevention tactics were inconvenient and ineffective, so he set a goal of designing his own. His innovative solution, called Quito, is “a low-cost and sustainable CO₂-based [carbon dioxide–based] mosquito trap designed to reduce mosquito populations, targeted at the context that is most ideal for mosquito-borne diseases transmission—tropical tourism.”⁴

What’s the gap he’s filling? Quito produces an artificial human odor that attracts mosquitoes and vacuums them into its chamber. Most devices or sprays are repellents, but Quito attracts and traps mosquitoes, reducing the local mosquito population. The gain is reducing the chance of disease transmission in tropical resorts to lessen the possibility of contagion as people travel in and out of the region.

Ideas worth pursuing offer a gain—they are worthwhile, useful, or meaningful to people, creatures, or our planet. They inform, entertain, provide a utility, or do something for the greater good.

What’s in It for Me?

In one of Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strips, Calvin, the little boy, answers the phone. The caller asks to speak to Calvin’s father. When Calvin responds that his father is not home, the caller asks if Calvin would please take a message. Calvin replies, “What’s in it for me?”

How do you determine if the goal and gap produce a gain? Think about what drives people. People respond to ideas, inventions, brands—anything really—because they want what it’s offering: a better lifestyle, self-improvement, delicious food, odor-free armpits, a cooler home, more fun, something that helps a toddler sleep on a plane, and so on. People seek a functional or emotional benefit for themselves, their families, their loved ones, their community, the rainforest, or their dog. What’s in it for me? For my Uncle Don? The greater community? The world?

During the mid-twentieth century, North American psychologist Abraham Maslow presented his theory of human motivation, proposing five core needs that form the basis for human motivation and therefore influence people’s behavior. Maslow arranged the five needs into a pyramid, with physiological needs (such as air, water, food, and sleep) at the bottom, followed by security needs (safety, stability), social needs (love, belonging), ego needs (self-esteem, recognition), and finally, at the pinnacle, self-actualization needs (development, creativity).

Think of our atavistic urges. Beyond our basic need for air, food, and shelter, people want to belong, have friends and family (related to survival and companionship), love interests (related to sex drive and companionship), be stimulated/amused (related to play and gratification), experience things (related to curiosity and participation), and to self-actualize (related to creative growth and intellectual development).

Will the gain address one of the following for people?

•Respond to a desire, a wish, or a yearning (think the lottery or Bumble)

•Satisfy a hope with the promise of a positive outcome (think Tonal fitness)

•Address a need, whether emotional or practical, real or imagined (think The Nature Conservancy)

•Point to a need people didn’t even realize they had (think Apple’s iPhone)

•Solve a problem with the functional benefit of a product or service (think Tylenol)

•Resolve a pain point (think True Name by Mastercard)

•Change perceptions (think Momofuku)

•Provide fun or entertainment as well as a way to connect (think TikTok or Twitch)

•Provide information or education (think Reporters Without Borders’ use of Minecraft to get information out to youth under censorship)

•Provide a utility (think Google)

•Advocate (think Southern Poverty Law Center)

•Allow for self-actualization (think online higher education or Alvin Ailey Extension dance classes)

•Provide purpose (think the Peace Corps)

Examples of Gains

An important consideration when coming up with a worthwhile idea is to determine the target audience; it’s a crucial factor in advertising, branding, industrial design, interactive design, entertainment programming, copywriting, marketing, and even in teaching.

An idea must have within it some emotional or practical functional benefit for people or someone they care about; otherwise they will not pay attention or will tune out. There’s too much going on 24/7.

Inventions

If you were to search the term “great ideas,” inventions would undoubtedly pop up. People see inventions as synonymous with ideas. From driverless cars to the James Webb Space Telescope to smartphones, inventions have changed our lives and the world. Inventions may be the one category people think of when they think of idea generation, but they’re certainly not the only one.

Not everyone is an inventor. In fact, you might have had an idea for an invention only to realize that you don’t have the engineering or technical background to make it happen—that’s happened to me many times. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pursue it; people don’t always invent alone. Many people collaborate successfully. Or you might have technical expertise but lack business expertise. Not having enough expertise in manufacturing twice prevented me from moving forward on business ideas—I didn’t have the knowhow or resources to follow it through, but I didn’t think to find investors or other experts. Now I’m sorry I didn’t.

Many inventions provide a gain by driving progress (depending upon how you look at it), but they also cause harm—pollution, waste, and so on. Today, however, many inventors are thinking sustainably, and that represents important progress too.

The Arts

The gains from the arts include enrichment, enlightenment, insight into humanity and our world, empathy, sharing, and seeing as others see and think. The arts transport us. They transfix. They teach. Each worthwhile novel, short story, poem, song, design, building, sculpture, play, dance, and painting is based on an idea.

In the arts, makers often do not start out by pinpointing their idea, but rather find it along the way, as they work. As pointed out earlier, you can find a gap this way. In an interview in the Paris Review, when John Wray asked writer Haruki Murakami about his conscious choices, Murakami replied, “When I start to write, I don’t have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come. I don’t choose what kind of story it is or what’s going to happen. I just wait. Norwegian Wood is a different thing, because I decided to write in a realistic style. But basically, I cannot choose.”⁵

Other writers and artists do map things out. If you reverse engineer a great work of art, analyzing it to ascertain the creator’s goal, gap, and gain, you’ll start to see how the artist thinks. As you can tell from the examples in this book, I deconstruct other people’s ideas all the time to learn from them.

Entertainment

Like the arts, the field of entertainment depends upon ideas. Many are formulaic, but others are novel or creative and offer greater gains. If you think about entertainment that has impacted the arts and some that affect society more broadly—from the pioneering public television program Sesame Street (entertainment that has enhanced learning in the United States) and millennial favorite Rick and Morty to Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker (an arresting look at life in combat in Iraq) or Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite (a fierce commentary on income inequality)—you start to see the how the creators’ goals, gaps, and gains might emerge. I often turn to television programming or films when I need to be transported into an imaginary world.

Education and Information

Ideas fill gaps in knowledge or provide content that enlightens, advises, or educates. In this book I’ve highlighted the Khan Academy, KlickEngage, Reporters Without Borders, and Tiya Miles’s book All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake.

World Issues and Social Good

Ideas can address so many social causes, issues, and endemic problems, as well as aid a great number of people by advancing safety, health, community, education, and the protecting environment. We need ideas to fight droughts and deforestation; afford access to clean water for everyone; prevent, detect, and treat diseases; and develop new medicines.

Products and Services

New products and services emerge all the time. In highly industrialized countries, supermarket and retail shopping outlets are replete with choices. For example, first there was one diet carbonated soft drink, and now there are many. Many companies focus mainly on generating profits. Therefore, if a company’s product or service is doing well, other companies try to imitate their success with a very similar offering. When applying the Three Gs, you’re focusing on generating worthwhile ideas and are much more likely to think of the triple bottom line—profit, people, and our planet.

Evaluating the Gain

Another way to look at a gain is to determine the why: Why do you have this goal? Why is the gap worth filling? Why would people gain from it? As author Simon Sinek says, it’s not the what or the how—it’s the underlying why that matters.

Kuleana is a 100% plant-based, sushi-grade, ready-to-eat “tuna” made from ingredients including algae, koji (a fungus that grows in East Asia), radish, bamboo, and potato. The team behind Kuleana is passionate about solving an existential environmental sustainability problem. (You might recall I suggested following your passion when setting a goal.) The team designed their alt-tuna, Kuleana, to be prepared as sushi, nigiri, carpaccio, poke, or ceviche, which retains the iron, vitamin B12, and omega-3 fatty acids of real tuna without the mercury or the environmental and ethical consequences.

The Kuleana mission statement says, “We start with the why, our why is our vision. Our culture promotes resourceful performance where people come first. We uphold the values of trust, honesty, and passion.”⁶

You can evaluate a gain by asking, What’s the why?

Certainly, plant-based tuna is not for everyone (although I welcome it). That’s where knowing your audience comes in. Look at it from other people’s point of view. Become the audience, and see it as they see it. Take a survey. Do some research, even if it is casual. Don’t assume people’s points of view or needs. (See the scenario map and social media research tools—Resource 4—in the resources section at the end of this book.)

Consider whether you’re aiming at everyone (almost never a good tactic) or a segment of people. Think about what your audience truly needs or wants. How can you meet the target audience’s needs, especially needs unmet by competitors? Does the gain truly add value? Really get to know the group or community your gain serves. What are they doing? What will they be doing next?

Understand the why of the audience’s behaviors. What are their pain points and barriers? What motivates them? What kind of unsolved problem could your idea solve?

Here’s a good example. With so many new natural laundry detergents, moms thought Lysol Laundry Sanitizer, which promised to kill 99.9% of germs, was too harsh. Lysol found an insight: The everyday items our kids love the most are actually the germiest. This led to their marketing idea: Lysol helps you protect what your child loves most.

This is how Lysol and McCann New York brought the idea to life: “We celebrated the bond between kids and their stuffed animals—and helped parents protect it by creating Teddy Repair, a program designed to disinfect stuffed animals, and even fix those that need a touch-up after all the love they’ve been given—all while, crucially, letting kids track their teddies’ journeys.” The Teddy Repair sweepstakes campaign repaired and sanitized 500 stuffed animals submitted by parents nationwide. Children could track their plushes during the repair process, which were fitted with RFID (radio-frequency identification) bracelets, on their parents’ phones.

The result: “We got moms talking, drove sales growth, and made Lysol relevant to a new category—and teddy caretakers everywhere.”⁷

Slave Play is a play that “imagines a radical form of role-playing for sexually frustrated interracial couples as a way of exploring the lingering effects of slavery in America.”⁸

In an interview with Tonya Pinkins for the American Theater, the playwright Jeremy O. Harris explained his thinking and goal. When he was at a party with friends, a “liberal” man was talking about enjoying rough sex with a woman who demanded it that way. Harris found it odd that everyone was casually discussing this and went on to engage in a dialogue with the man. Harris asked the man if he identified as a male feminist; the man said, “Yes.”

Harris responded, “‘Great. Now if she was Black, would you feel as comfortable telling all of us about this in this way?’ And the entire energy in the room changed immediately . . .” The conversation continued, piquing Harris’ interest in its provocations.

Pinkins’ question elicited an exclusive interview response from Harris about his goal as a playwright. “. . . Because there was only one other person of color in this conversation, and we were laughing at the discomfort that all the white people had at what for us was a very casual question. I was like: This is theatre. This is what theatre should do: Untangle responses like this. So that started it.”⁹

The gap? There are few produced Black playwrights, and Harris is the only one tackling the legacy of slavery in terms of interracial sexual dynamics and master-slave sexual scenarios.

The gain is significant. Slave Play breaks taboos, ignites conversations, and creates a brave space. Harris is writing a screenplay with producer Bruce Cohen, who said of Slave Play, “The play is exploring so many things that are on people’s minds right now in this really complicated, difficult time. A lot of it’s about race, but not just about race—about gender, about identity, about expression, about how people connect and interact or aren’t allowed to.”¹⁰

Slave Play is the recipient of the Rosa Parks Playwriting Award, the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, the Lotos Foundation Prize in the Arts and Sciences, and the 2018 Paula Vogel Award.

After completing this chapter, here are your action steps:

Think about a gain you’d like to see in the world. Worthwhile ideas contribute not only to business success and the economy but to social well-being, ecological concerns, to the health and safety of communities, the advancement of disciplines and knowledge, to the arts, and to the interests of individuals. Answering these questions will set you on the path toward assessing the gain:

•Is the benefit worth the cost of developing the idea?

•Does the gain align with people’s aspirations, desires, or needs, and with society’s?

•Does the gain do any harm? For this idea to happen, does any community have to lose?

•Is there an insight you can point to?

Ask penetrating, disarming, transgressive, or challenging questions. Keep asking questions until you get to the crux of the matter. Even ask provocative questions, as did Jeremy O. Harris.

Dig deep. Then deeper. But if you don’t find what you’re looking for in one hole, move over and dig a new hole.

NOTES: YOUR IDEAS

What is one of your goals that would really propel your company, career, discipline, or life forward?

Are you aware of a gap in that discipline, field, industry, or sector that aligns with your goal?

Who or what would gain if you were to achieve your goal?