How to validate if a problem is worth solving
Every month for the past year James Gabb and I have chosen an industry problem and gone deep into it. At the end of the month we either “kill” (the idea sucks and we no longer want to progress it) or “keep going” (there’s something here and we want to progress it further).
We find this to be a great exercise to do outside of our day jobs. At worst, we become better Product Managers. At best, we find a huge global problem that we believe is worth solving.
So far we’ve explored problems in industries such as recycling, international hiring, engineering resourcing, trades, contractor management, and many more.
In this article, I’ll take you through our process for identifying and validating whether a problem is worth solving. To dive deeper on this topic check out a talk I recently did with Blackbird Ventures on design thinking to build products and services.
1. Find the problem
Big problems are often right in front of us but can be difficult to identify.
For example, before Uber, most people didn’t like getting taxis to travel from A to B. They were overpriced, often didn’t take credit cards and the customer experience wasn’t great. But there was no alternative. Most of us didn’t realise this was a big global problem worth solving until Uber came along and did it for us.
So where do we start in finding a problem? Think about your day-to-day:
- What really frustrates you frequently?
- Is there something that your friends or colleagues won’t stop complaining about?
Write this problem down.
2. Research the problem
Once you have identified a problem, you need to ensure it’s not just you or your friends or colleagues that face it. Otherwise, you risk building a product for only a few people.
There are two ways you can do this:
- Online research: read blogs, product reviews, social media, and research papers to understand whether this is a problem that many people are complaining about online
- Customer interviews: find 10 people (outside of your inner circle) that you believe face this problem and interview them to understand whether this is true and why it’s a problem for them
- Competitor analysis: Google search keywords of the problem (e.g. “alternative to taxi” for Uber) to see if there are any players out there already solving this problem
During this research, you want to answer questions such as:
- Who faces this problem?
- Why is this a problem?
- Why is nobody solving it?
This will give you an understanding of whether the problem is real and its magnitude.
3. Validate an early solution (MVP)
Once you understand enough about why the problem exists, who faces it, and who’s currently solving it, you can start investing effort in building a prototype.
Use a tool like Figma to quickly design something that you can show to potential customers and get real feedback on. The early design doesn’t need to be perfect, the purpose is to create something visual that you can have a conversation about.
Ask the customer:
- What do you like about it?
- What don’t you like about it?
- What would you change?
- What’s missing?
Over enough customer interviews, you can start to synthesise the most common feedback and see patterns in what’s important to customers. You can improve the prototype until it meets customer needs. This is an interactive process in which you’ll continue to get feedback from customers until they’re ready to adopt and pay for it.
If a customer isn’t willing to pay for the product once the full functionality is ready, this could be an early indicator that the problem you’re solving isn’t important enough for them.
If you’re game, you can also use a no-code tool like Bubble to create a MVP that customers can start using.
4. “Kill” or “keep going”
By now you should’ve generated enough customer insight to know if this is a real problem and whether you’re passionate about solving it. Now it’s time to decide whether you want to continue investing effort into it or not.
Two questions I often find useful here are:
- Is this a “vitamin” or a “painkiller”? Are you solving a problem that’s big enough for people, that they’re willing to pay for and use often? Or is it better as a feature of an existing product they already use?
- Is this problem going to be around in 20 years and growing? Are you betting on a growing industry that is going to increase in demand in the future? Or will your business be wiped out due to changing consumer preferences and incoming technologies?
There’s nothing wrong with “killing” a problem, it’s actually a good thing! You’ll save time, money, and can move faster onto the next problem.
If you decide to “keep going” you should keep obsessing over your target customers and iterating on your product as you work towards product-market fit.
How do you build and iterate on your product?
James Gabb and I are on a journey to help more people become great Product Managers based on our learnings from Amazon, Atlassian, SafetyCulture, Eucalyptus, and our own startups.
Why? We want to help more people become Product Managers, which means a larger PM community and more people solving global problems making the world a better place.
We’ve made it $19 to anybody can access it: PM Playbook
Feel free to connect or ask me any questions directly on LinkedIn.
All the best,
Matt
