Create a business around a problem, not the other way around
Last year was crazy. The pandemic made us think about a lot of different things, starting from “Why don’t we call our loved ones more often?” to “Am I really secure with the one job I have?”. While everybody needs to figure out the answer for the first question for themselves, I can answer the second question right away: No, your one job that you have is not secure enough any more.
What if the next pandemic strikes in a year or two and your company needs to get rid of a lot of employees to survive? In a blink of an eye, you are sitting on your couch in sweatpants that you washed three weeks ago, eating ramen and thinking about the time when you had enough money to order some delicious pizza with a soft drink.
The last year really showed the world that to be safe you need some sort of extra income, a second income stream. It doesn’t matter if it is some sort of passive income (assets etc.) or active income (selling something, working weekends at another job etc.) all that matters are the few extra bucks that can make life more comfortable when one income stream is suddenly gone.
Find the right problem
I recently read Dan Olsens “The Lean Product Playbook” so this article will rely heavily on the concepts that he mentioned in the book. If you are already familiar with it, I would love to hear your opinion on it! If not, I highly recommend it. Even though the books concepts are build around a SaaS product, they work also for every other product to a certain degree.
In his book, Dan talks about the very interesting concept of “problem space” and “solution space”. He explains them like this:
Any product that you actually build exists in solution space, as do any product designs that you create — such as mockups, wireframes, or prototypes. Solution space includes any product or representation of a product that is used by or intended for use by a customer.
In contrast, there is no product or design that exists in problem space. Instead, problem space is where all the customer needs that you’d like your product to deliver live. You shouldn’t interpret the word “needs” too narrowly: Whether it’s a customer pain point, a desire, a job to be done, or a user story, it lives in problem space.
Why many good ideas fail
Looking at the definitions for problem space and solution space, it happens far too often that people try to create products thinking in solution space. By defining a problem not wide enough, it can happen that some easy and cheap solutions are never even considered as a viable solution to a problem. If you want to make sure that a solution to a problem is actually a good and useful one you have to step back and define the problem as general as possible.
Just because there is a new fancy library for JavaScript does not mean that you need to find a problem to solve it in creating a SaaS with said library. You first have to identify some sort of problem to solve, define it and then search for a possible solution.
Uber
Remember when Uber or Lyft wasn’t around? You had to call a cab, wait for it to arrive and in the end you had to pay cash or make a stop at the next ATM. While everything seemed alright with this sort of transportation, there were quiet a few things that caused friction in the process. First, you had to wait till the cab arrived: You did not knot if it were stuck in traffic or when exactly it will arrive. Second, you had to pay cash. What if you have had no money in your wallet or if you left your wallet at home? Uber defined those problems in problem space and tried to find a solution. And they found a very good one.
When you use Uber, the only thing that you need is your phone. You log into the app, the app recognizes your position, and you call an Uber-driver. You now can see where he is and when he will arrive. After you arrived at your destination, you just leave the car and the driver gets paid through the app on your phone. The whole process is a lot easier and almost frictionless.
Conclusion
When you try to find a good business idea, focus on problem space. Try to find out what processes we go through every day that can be improved and try to define them. Then try to find the easiest solution for the problem. Just remember what Dave McClure of 500 Startups said:
Customers don’t care about your solution. They care about their problems.
