You have the ultimate idea for a solution. You’re excited, full of energy, and you have put all of your resources into its implementation. You gathered the best collaborators, you have a fantastic place to work, you have your roadmap, and you can already see the success knocking at your door.

But people are not getting it.

You need more than 30 seconds to explain how it works. Each time you pitch it, you say different things with slightly different meanings. You focus on its inner workings, on technical details. You talk about what potentially could do shortly.

People come, they get amazed at your presentation, they wonder about the possibilities, and then they play with it. Some of the parts are not immediately clear to use. Some of the rebranded names for everyday things are difficult to grasp at a glance. Some rough edges here and there are not helping with the overall experience.

And they go. They turn away on their shoulders to never come again.

You have lost them.

What’s the problem?

You need to communicate your idea using the language of the people you want to attract.

Use simple, familiar names for the key features (when you’ll be famous, you’ll have your chance to invent new verbs based on the name of your solution). Plan an onboarding process, precise, linear, straightforward that would take your customers by the hand towards all of the magnificent spaces of your designed space. Make it foolproof. Make it engaging. Make it fun.

But most of all: it aims at providing real value to real people. What is the tangible benefit you have measured? How are people enthusiastic about your solution? Are they coming back every day to spend time with it? Are they getting the promised value?

If you cannot answer one or more of the previous questions reliably, you might have a clear need in a more robust and well-structured design process. It’s not too late, you can still leverage all the creative and material investments you have made in your dream idea. You need to adopt and adapt a design process based on people’s real needs, make assumptions about the value you want to provide to them and validate your idea with measurable outcomes.

Do not follow your intuition alone. Design your success.