Pimping Up Your Portfolio - The "Don’t Stop Innovating" Series

by Startacus Admin
In their first blog post, Think Innovate Change are going to share with you some tips on how you can generate ideas, & apply that creative thinking to extend your business offering...or in other words, how you can pimp up your portfolio.
"Before you even start thinking of ideas for new products and services, remember to be well-rested (easier said than done!), and try to be in a positive frame of mind. You also need to make sure you are open-minded when you are brainstorming. If you are working in a team, you can often find yourself slipping into the habit of analysing whether those ideas will work or not. Whilst that is an important stage to go through, for the moment, just concentrate on producing ideas.
So, how do you come up with an idea? Whilst some of you may be fortunate enough to experience incessant “Eureka!” moments, others may struggle with ideas generation. Wherever you fall on the “ideas person” scale, there are plenty of techniques you can use to create ideas for expanding your portfolio. Here are some of my favourites:
- Lotus Blossom: Whilst this may sound like a challenging Yoga position, it is actually a handy technique to generate lots of ideas. First, write down on a piece of paper, the problem your business is trying to solve. Then, write down 8 solutions to that problem. Next, take each of those 8 solutions, and write 8 additional solutions for each of the original 8 solutions. Before you know it, you have 64 new ideas for possible products and services! If that sounds confusing, don’t despair – here’s one I made earlier, whilst pretending to be a personal fitness instructor.



- Ansoff Matrix: Although the name of this tool may not seem as exciting as “Lotus Blossom”, it is actually a very useful way to brainstorm ideas for new products and services – and in particular for identifying new sets of customers. The tool simply consists of 4 quadrants. Start off by writing your current offering in the top left-hand quadrant. Then, think of whom else you could offer your products and services to (i.e. to which new markets), and what other products and services you could offer to your existing market or to new markets. The example below is for a children’s book illustrator.


I didn’t want to bore you with lengthy case studies, so to finish off, I just have two short examples of how Walkers and the AA have developed their portfolios:
1) In 2008, Walkers, as in the crisp company, embraced the concept of “open innovation”, and used their own customers to generate ideas for new crisp flavours, in their “Do Us a Flavour” campaign. They incentivised their customers by offering the winner £50,000 and 1% of future sales of that crisp flavour. Whilst you may not have a similar sized marketing budget to Walkers, using your customers is an effective way to come up with ideas. It is not only great market research, but also helps you understand exactly what your customers want. (And just in case you were wondering which flavour won the competition – it was Emma Rushin’s Builder’s Breakfast)!
2) More recently, you may be aware that the AA (famous for its car breakdown service) now offers boiler services. Referring back to the Ansoff matrix, this is a clear example of product development and diversification – as they have developed a completely new service for their existing customers, and will have undoubtedly acquired new customers at the same time.
If you are successful in coming up with some ideas to revamp, change, or even extend your range of products and services, remember that the next important step is to work out whether those ideas are worth pursuing. In order to analyse your ideas, you will need to weigh up whether the new products and services will be cost-effective whilst producing the impact and income (if any) you aspire to achieve. In other words, don’t pimp up your portfolio for the sake of it! Generate a few ideas first of all, and then decide which ones to turn into reality."
About the contributor...
Clare Griffiths is a Director of Think Innovate Change, a company which enables individuals and organisations to become more innovative by designing and delivering practical innovation management courses, tools and solutions.
Over the next 12 blog posts, Think Innovate Change will share with you some practical tools which come in handy when you are innovating for your business and its growth.
"Throughout the series, our message to you is – once you have generated your initial ideas for your venture, don’t stop there. Continually create new ideas, and think of ways in which you can improve your business. This will help you build a competitive edge, and will hopefully increase your profitability and business performance. In a nutshell, this is what innovation is all about – doing things differently with positive impact for you and your business."
Subscribe to our newsletter
If you would like to receive our startup themed newsletter, full of the latest startup opportunities, events, news, stories, tips and advice, then sign up here.
The lowdown on OneThird, the foodtech startup that's tackling food waste via its innovative solution for predicting the shelf life of fresh produce.

Karen Meager, co-founder of Monkey Puzzle Training shares some insights on how leadership has changed in the last decade, and what it takes to be a great leader today.

Freight rate management platform Freightify raises Series A investment to support further international growth and mission to help more freight forwarding companies digitize their operations.

Crowdfunding success for Omni, the vegan dog food brand, reaffirms the recession-proof growth of the pet nutrition industry.

Want to learn a new language? Weeve is an innovative startup that has created an innovative, creative and effective way to help you do just that.

Want to build an investable, scalable tech startup? The Raise Accelerator programme is now open for applications and will help you do just that.

Want to increase visual engagement for your startup's Instagram account? These tips will help you do just that.

Fashion innovation thanks to Italian Artisan and its B2B one-stop marketplace that connects international brands with hard-to-get authentic artisans.

Want to gain an edge over your business competitors? Listening to your audience is an absolute must.

The Clothes Doctor mission to fight fast fashion continues as the innovative eco clothing care brand raises £1m to support further growth.
Published on: 25th August 2012
If you would like to enable commenting via your Startacus account, please enable Disqus functionality in your Account Settings.







- Freightify secures $12M funding round to power digital transformation for freight forwarders 2nd Feb 2023 Freight rate management platform Freightify raises Series A investment to support further international growth and mission to help more freight forwarding companies digitize their operations.
- Vegan Dog Food Brand, Omni Smashes £400K Crowdfunding Target 1st Feb 2023 Crowdfunding success for Omni, the vegan dog food brand, reaffirms the recession-proof growth of the pet nutrition industry.
- Raise Spring Accelerator programme seeking applications for next cohort 30th Jan 2023 Want to build an investable, scalable tech startup? The Raise Accelerator programme is now open for applications and will help you do just that.
- Leading French Travel Co. Offers Mentoring to two UK startups on its prestigious two-month programme 23rd Jan 2023 High-potential social impact startups from the UK sought for the 9th annual Les Tremplins by Voyage Privé programme.