If you’re not solving a problem, no one cares
I continue to be amazed at how many people I meet (and we’re talking about people who work in product development) who are hesitant to say that their product provides a clear solution to a glaring problem. They push back against the simplicity of “clear solution” and even more against the boldness of naming a “glaring problem.”
At the end of the day, though, no one is going to spend money on you unless you’re offering a clear solution to a glaring problem.
But what if we talked about how our product adds value? What if we talked about its benefits to the customer? These are the most common approaches I hear.
These are fine, but they will never bring your product from the mental category of nice-to-have to must-have. To put it another way, you will never make it to the point in the technology adoption curve where you get from those early enthusiasts — who’ll take a chance on some cool new thing — to the early majority, which is defined by people who don’t care unless your product solves a problem that they agree is a problem worth addressing.
At the end of the day, though, no one is going to spend money on you unless you’re offering a clear solution to a glaring problem.
But maybe most important of all, defining your product as a solution to a problem allows you to take the benefits of your product and make them much more concrete and urgent at the same time. Your customer can immediately see a use case and feel motivated to act it out.
Time and again, though, this need to identify a problem will run up against the fear of being too bold or exaggerating the problem you’re trying to solve. You might even worry about implicitly insulting other people who have allowed such a problem to exist in the first place.
And I haven’t yet mentioned the most important part of all.
In a world where competitors are all talking about their benefits (and let’s face it, they offer many of the same features you do), the edge will go to the person who can most forcefully relay a customer’s problem back to them. If you are the one identifying and clearly describing a problem, you don’t have any competition — you are the default solution. You don’t even need to mention that other companies and products exist.
If you are the one identifying and clearly describing a problem, you don’t have any competition — you are the default solution.
This is all to say that no matter how much you or your colleagues might feel squeamish at using the brute language of glaring problem and clear solution, the fact is that there is no better way to create a sense of urgency in a would-be customer and no better way to make the use case for your product clear and concrete. If you find yourself unable to do this, you might want to redesign your product until it does provide a clear solution to a glaring problem. Otherwise, you’re dooming your sales and marketing people to go out and push a solution for a non-existent problem, which is going to make both them and your harassed customers feel awful.
Glaring problem. Clear solution. If you don’t have those figured out, figure them out. If your product or service simply can’t be put into this framework, create a different product or service. You’ll see much better results and will feel a much greater sense of purpose in what you’re doing.
