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How do I find problems to solve? (alien.top)

submitted 2 years ago by tomstclair@alien.top to c/entrepreneur@indiehackers.space

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Hi all,

I want to open a new business, and I want to focus on solving a certain problem. How do you brainstorm / come up with a problem to solve? How do you do your research to find problems that needs to be solved?

I am finding it hard to find problems naturally, how can I better this ability?

Thanks!

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[–] Sunstoned1@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago

If you ask customers (or prospects) about their problems you'll get blank stares or unrealistic answers.

The goal is to identify and solve latent pain. These are the non-obvious problems, or ones so common we all just live with them assuming they can't be solved.

Start with a target market. Who are you solving for. This should be a market you know and understand. If you don't k own what a market is, you MUST read the book Crossing the Chasm. I'm sure there's a YouTube su..are if you look.
Ask three questions.

2A. What's your top goal - e.g., what are you trying to achieve? People can generally answer this question truthfully and realistically.

2B. What is holding you back from achieving that goal? (Hint, here's your pain/problems).

2C. Ask "what else is holding you back" at least 6 times. Give them time to think. Keep pushing. The really good stuff is what they say after the first three or four obvious pains.

Go interview a couple dozen BUYERS in this market and ask these questions. Buyers don't have to be CEO's but they should have budget and decision making authority. This could be a head of household in a consumer market, a director of something in a business, but someone with spending authority.

Now look at your notes. What are the top pains mentioned? Are there a collection of related pains?

Now interview another collection of buyers (or the same batch if they'll give you time). Next round of questions is to seek the impact of their pain.

What do the top pains COST the buyer? What's the business impact of the pain? What's the opportunity cost? It's crazy what you can come up. I interviewed a secretary once. She said her top pain was having to send 70 callers a day to voice-mail. I had the whole executive team in the room as I interviewed her. By the end we tallied up this was costing the company $960k/year in lost profits. The CFO argued the assumptions were too conservative! It was a MILLION DOLLAR PROBLEM. Really dig in. You'll find money.

Now you know what the pain costs, so you can size up a solution. If it's on average a $10k problem, your solution can't cost more than $10k. Probably needs to be more like $1k. You should target an ROI of 2X to 10X.

Another round of interviews. This time you're introducing the problem and asking the target buyers what they might need to solve it. Here's where your inventor mind needs to be at play. Product or service, work with them to create solution(s). If you already have a solution invented, don't pitch it. Ask "would it help if..." and see if they say yes. If so, ask them to share what that would look like. Get a REALLY clear picture of them using your product or service to solve their problem.

Collect your solution(s) and prioritize.

Now investigate the costs to deliver the solution(s). Are the costs low enough to deliver on a 2X to 10X ROI while leaving you good margin? If yes, you have a business.

You now know your target market. You know the pains (thus marketing message), and have your sales methodology (it's the same as above, except now you have a solution. Bosworth's Solution Selling is the primer on this).

The other option is, as Buffet would say, "do something common uncommonly well." You can make money doing anything, just take better care of customers than the competition.

Good luck.