Gnarly roots

Get to the Root of the Problem

We all have problems.

Figuring out what the problem is that you want to solve is crucial to building something that matters. But it’s not as simple as just saying to yourself “This is an issue for me, it must be a problem for others!” Remember, I recommend that you start with a problem that is an issue for you. However, when you move that to others, there is a simple process for checking that you are identifying a problem everyone has.

I use two steps. Identify the problem and test my assumptions with a survey.

Identify The Problem

For the problem, the first thing I always do is try to establish the problem domain. Once I have the domain I try and break my problem down into several concise statements. So, if the problem is a more efficient time tracking, I might come up with five specific statements that represent the problem.

Here’s an example:

• I have a hard time tracking what I’m doing when I switch from project to project
• I don’t always have my laptop with me to use my time tracking spreadsheet for tracking projects
• Knowing how much time I’ve spent on a project is difficult if I skip a day of recording time
• Preparing time tracking reports requires a lot of time by itself
• Understanding the cost of a project requires additional formulas that have to be custom made at times

So, in the domain of tracking time as a problem, I have five specific things that are difficult for me.

Now I create my simple survey. I usually use Google Forms for it. When it’s done, I send it to my customer advisory panel.

Create a Survey

First, I write a description of what the problem domain I’ve identified.

Then I list the five concise statements about the problem domain. Under each one, I ask three questions.

1. On a scale of one to five, with five being the worst, how painful is this problem for you?
2. On a scale of one to five, with five being the lowest, how much of a priority is this problem for you?
3. How do you resolve this problem now?

Once the customer advisor answers those questions, I’ll review the results. I’m looking for statements that cause pain for my advisors and that are a high priority. So, a five on the pain scale and a one on the priority scale. I won’t consider anything under a three and two respectively. Your customers must be aware that this causes them sufficient pain and that it’s a priority for them.

If you have a five and one, that’s a good indication of where to start.

If you do get a five and one, or something close to that, you can look at what the customer advisor does to solve the problem now. This will also help you see potential avenues to take to address this problem.

If you don’t get sufficiently good numbers to move on, do it again, but try to be more specific about what the statements are or, try modifying the problem domain. For instance, maybe time tracking isn’t the issue, it’s that I track time at all. Maybe I should switch to value pricing only.

Regardless, you can keep working on this by refining the surveys, getting more precise and looking for high priority and high pain responses from your customer advisors.

Once you have that, then you are ready to find the solution.

If you’d like a generic template for the survey, let me know, and I’d be happy to send you one. Also, several years ago I began learning more about product development and customer acquisition. Two books that were fundamental to what I’ve learned were “Running Lean” by Ash Maurya and “Lean Startup” by Eric Reese. Both are great books and will teach you a bunch about the whole idea of how to start and develop a business.

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This is the from the archive of an ongoing series called Making Things That Matter. Each week I will send you an email with another step in the process of building products and launching ideas. Signup here to join the conversation.