Finding a startup idea: 5 evergreen sources of user problems
How-to guide for digital / on site problem identification
Alright, I’ve done my “here’s all the things that could go wrong” speech. By this point you hopefully have at least an area or topic of interest (transportation, healthcare, entertainment, etc.) for which you want to solve problems. I tend to think of user groups and problems of interest as interchangeable (albeit codependent) starting points, but I find it’s better, generally speaking, to do target user selection before any problem identification. So ideally… you already have chosen a target user group as well.
Now, our next step is to find a general problem of interest, which we will refine later on with user research. Here are a couple of ways to kick off that process:
1. Lurk around on topic forums (Reddit, Discord, etc.)
I love this tactic as a first pass for finding more specific subsets of problems on a general topic.
For example, say my space of interest is travel — here’s one way I could go about creating a list of possible problematic subspaces:
A) Go on Reddit.com and type “travel” into the search
B) Click on whichever channel, a.k.a. “subreddit”, piques your interest (normally, you’ll want to pick a large enough subreddit that there is ~daily engagement)
C) Search for specific keywords in the channel
Some examples may include: [“problem”, “issue”, “annoy”, “mad”, “anger”, “upset”]
From doing this activity, in about 5 minutes, I found that people experience a high volume of pain during air travel (don’t I know it lol). People complain frequently on this subreddit about:
a) passport issues
b) timing of / activities during layovers
c) uncomfortable aircraft seats
2. Read through product reviews on purchase channels (Amazon, Walmart, app stores, etc.)
This will work best for products using B2C and DTC models + specific product types or SKUs of interest.
Digital information is blowing up. Amazon Review Data suggests there were already 223M+ product reviews by 2018, and consulting firm, McKinsey & Company, suggests that ratings and reviews posting prevalence increased by 40–80% during the Coronavirus pandemic (from 2019 to 2020). So with review counts on individual SKUs sometimes nearing >10,000s, how can we take advantage of all of this data? To illustrate this concept, let’s pretend we’re interested in disrupting the outdoor sprinkler space and sleuth around on Amazon for some leads on where to start:
A) Go to amazon.com and type “outdoor sprinkler” into the search.
B) Click through a couple of the top results and choose a SKU. Click on the total ratings count.
B) Click on any of the star ratings numbers (5 star, 4 star, etc.).
B) Click through a couple of the top results and navigate to all critical reviews (or 1–2 star reviews, if no option to capture reviews with ANY negative sentiment)
From here, I would find that in the $25–30 price range, users complain there’s no durable option for an oscillating sprinkler system. I would then repeat this process until I feel I have a good sense of the market before moving on.
Now, as I will continue to assert — these facts are NOT describing the actual problem. A potential problem space can be derived from these facts though- currently, there may not be an inexpensive, but lasting, way to irrigate land. That’s a GOOD problem.
3. Listen to user buzz on social media (YouTube, tiktok, etc.)
This approach, known as “social listening“, is like the more casual step sister of review platform analysis. The process will be largely the same as in the above example; however, it requires a bit more leg work since this data will also largely be in audio / video form.
If planning to use social listening for problem identification, I would cast a wide net to many different socials and see where topic chatter is prevalent and coming from your target users. The socials you decide to search should be thoughtfully aligned to your target user group. For example, if I am trying to find high schoolers discussing problems with current backpack designs, I probably wouldn’t scrape LinkedIn for opinions. That’s not where my high school market is hanging out to chat about backpack problems, right?
Here’s an example of using YouTube for social listening:
A) Go to youtube.com and type “backpacks for high school[ers]” in the search
B) Click through the first couple of videos looking for content that’s tagged with keywords like [“best”, “worst”, “review”]
C) As you find videos to investigate, click into the video transcript (“show transcript” is the bottom option on the ellipse menu, stored next to “download” on the video player interface)
D) Search for specific keywords in the transcript
Some examples may include: [“problem”, “issue”, “annoy”, “mad”, “anger”, “upset”]
4. Look through “how-to”s / help sites / FAQs
This is a broader category, but all of these tactics are a means to the same end — to find something that’s missing. Looking through guides online can reveal gaps in a current process or a place where a new tool could add efficiency. Help sites and FAQs will normally reveal gaps in existing products, like a need for simplicity or better ease of use.
For example, say I wanted to find gaps in the process of building a treehouse (don’t ask why I chose this example)… I could use a how-to guide to walk through the process and see if anything comes up that’s a potential pain point.
The way to do this is:
A) Search for the process and find a guide
B) Step through the guide and look for potential painpoints
C) Continue investigating until you find a problem of interest… (pretty much every process has potential to be improved)
When I did this for treehouses something I came across was that most blueprints are in absolute dimensions. So maybe there’s a need in the broader construction market to have modular / scalable blueprints?
5) Hang out at the problem site (physically)
The last way to source user problems is to go be with users. This should ALWAYS be part of your problem identification process, but it may save time and other resources to do a bit of research (using tactics 1–4 on this list) on potential problems ahead of in person meetings. If you do choose to omit the initial research step and go straight to the in person problem site for inspiration, be sure to be cognizant of user’s time, privacy, and willingness to participate. Having personal conversations with users is always a good idea.
Narrow here: filter out the bad problems
From here, I would next take my list of possible problems and run it through the “bad problems” filter — as discussed in a separate post. For a refresh, bad problem types include behavior-driven process inefficiencies, mindset problems, and “obvious problems” (normally relating to infrastructure, policy, or psych). For example, if my potential problem areas are passport policy issues, timing of layovers, and uncomfortable aircraft seats, this is what I would find:
a) passport policy issues — “obvious problem” (infrastructure issue)
b) timing of layovers — hybrid between process inefficiency and infrastructure issue… I don’t hate this problem but I wouldn’t start here
c) uncomfortable aircraft seats — this is a GOOD starting problem! With 5 more minutes of research, you would find that airlines buy interior seating from third party manufacturers. That’s the best possible answer at this stage, you’re ready to move on to refining the problem.
What’s next: validating problems with user research
So now you have a list of a few possible problem ideas- congrats you are one step closer to a great product! …“But wait Sam, even if I validate and specify with user research, how can I truly know I have found the right problem to solve?” Great question, reader! Unfortunately, the truth is you can’t know for sure at this stage. But there are a few things you can do to ensure you get pretty close. Next, we will validate the existence of the problem with a broader user group and get more specific on the problem. We’ll chat through all the basics of how to do this in next week’s post!
