Fall in Love With The Problem
A practical guide to building products people will actually use
It’s easy to become obsessed with trying to build the next big thing. Falling in love with an idea, brainstorming features, collaborating on mockups, testing functionality, fixing bugs. The whole process is intoxicating.
The problem is, this approach often leads to misalignment between what the product does and what its users need it to do. Sometimes, it can even lead to the creation of something utterly useless.
Falling in love with an idea can be a serious trap for companies at every stage; it can lead early-stage startups to spend too much time searching for product-market fit and later stage companies to lose customers. But it is avoidable.
The key is to flip the approach on its head. Instead of brainstorming what the next big idea is, focus on what the biggest problems are. Don’t fall in love with an idea, fall in love with a problem and let solving that problem guide your solution’s design.
Don’t fall in love with an idea, fall in love with a problem
It turns out that identifying a problem is relatively easy to do, but figuring out the root cause — not merely the symptoms — can be complicated. Not to mention what comes after: creating a clear definition, developing constructive ideas and combining it all into something valuable. Let’s break down how to do it step-by-step.
1. Identify the problem and its cause
Recognizing that something isn’t working is the first step toward falling in love with the problem, but it’s important to dive deeper than just recognition. Often what’s recognizable is only a symptom of a deeper issue. The 5 Whys framework — asking ‘why?’ five times to uncover the underlying cause — is a good way to find what really needs to be solved. It’s important to remember that this can never be done in isolation. Customers are your ally. Work with them to understand the real problem.
Here’s an example. When I was the Investment Lead at IDEA: Northeastern University’s Venture Accelerator, the team came to the realization that our programming had a hole in it. For context, IDEA is an early-stage venture accelerator that takes entrepreneurs with only an idea through a three-stage process — Ready, Set and Go — which helps them to craft a solution design, develop a business model and gain initial traction.
IDEA was very good at moving ventures through the beginning stages of its programs. Typically, ventures would move through the Ready and Set stages in one to three months. The problem we noticed was that ventures in the Go stage stayed there for a significantly longer period of time — in some cases for upwards of eight months. This was bad news.
The team immediately fell into the trap of trying to design a solution; should we break the stage into two? Should we impose a time limit? Should we alter the milestones ventures need to achieve? All potentially good ideas, but without understanding why ventures were staying in the stage for so long, we would have no way of knowing which — if any — solution would work. We had to dig deeper to find the common problem ventures were facing.
To do this, the Investment Committee reached out to every venture that we had funded in the last two years. Some were still in the Go stage while others had successfully graduated. We had lengthy conversations and collected a lot of data points, collectively speaking with over 40 ventures. From this, were able to piece together a common problem: a significant portion of ventures were seeking seed investment from angels and VCs, but felt utterly unprepared. In some cases, ventures didn’t know where and how to connect with investors. Others knew how to make it that far, but had no idea what to put in a pitch deck or executive summary to spark interest. There we had it.
- Problem: Ventures didn’t feel prepared to seek equity seed funding
- Cause: IDEA didn’t have a clear funding preparation program
- Symptom: Ventures were stuck in the Go stage
2. Seek shared understanding across the organization
This sentence says it all. Working to solve the problem isn’t an individual task; the entire organization needs to be honed in on it.
Once the Investment Committee understood the problem and its cause, we held an all-hands meeting where we walked everyone through our conversations with ventures. We summarized our key takeaways and highlighted specific suggestions we received from founders. It was an effective use of time that allowed everyone to understand what the real problem was.
3. Use the problem to drive a comprehensive solution
A shared understanding creates a productive environment for brainstorming. Here’s a great framework for how to brainstorm for just about anything. It starts by creating a clear user story, which allows people to brainstorm specific solutions at every step. This process will always result in some far-out suggestions, but starting with a clearly defined problem will yield very powerful results.
At IDEA, we developed a two-part solution for Go stage ventures. The first part was a series of workshops and panel discussions with local investors. The discussions were phenomenal. For many of our ventures, these workshops provided their first opportunity to talk with angels and VCs. Many took advantage of the networking opportunities and gave informal pitches, and every venture walked away with practical and actionable advice.
The second part was something we coined ‘Investor Readiness’ that I established with guidance from our faculty advisors at NUCEE. The program paired ventures with actual investors for feedback and mentorship. The investors gave highly specific advice. Many even arranged calls with the founders to walk through the comments they had made. The Investor Readiness program was incredibly impactful and is still offered today.
4. Constantly reframe the problem
First solutions are never perfect. They will inevitably have glitches or won’t completely satisfy customer needs. Every iteration requires closer contact with customers to reframe their current challenges. Customers will always have opinions and, when you listen carefully and challenge when necessary, you will better understand their current problem.
The first Investor Readiness program created new problems for our ventures, which forced us to reimagine parts of the solution. But, those problems were focused on how the program operated and what it was able to offer. We had successfully shifted the problem from complete lack of preparation to underperforming parts of the program. And those, we could always measure, iterate and improve.
Building great products takes significant effort. It will never be an easy process and will always have a lot of moving parts, but by falling in love with the problem, companies can make sure they build something meaningful that their customers will actually want to use.
