Extreme questions for triggering ideas

I love the list of questions laid out in this post to trigger ideas. This blog post is just a plug for that one.

Here’s the list, minus the filler and fluff:

• If we were forced to increase our prices by 10x, what would we have to do to justify it?
• If all our customers vanished, and we had to earn our growth and brand from scratch, what would we do?
• If we were never allowed to provide tech support, in any form, what would have to change?
• What would be the most fun thing to build?
• If our biggest competitor copied every single feature we have, how do we still win?
• What if we are forced to ship a full, completed (at least MVP) new feature, in just two weeks, that would delight and surprise some fraction of our customers?
• If we were not allowed to have a website, how would we still grow our business?
• What if we could have no more synchronous meetings?
• If we could never talk to our customers again, how would we figure out what to build?
• What if it didn’t matter how unprofitable we were?
• What externality has the potential to kill the entire company?
• What if we could only ship one thing this year?

Those questions are all pretty great Lean Coffee fodder.