Table of contents
Is the idea the problem or is the problem the idea? In the beginning, the question often arises: what do you start with? Experience shows that it is harder to start with an idea because then you try to take the second step before the first. The danger here is that you focus too much on the product and not enough on the context in which the product can be a solution. In addition, there is the possibility that there is no suitable problem that can be solved by the invention. In the worst case, this leads to you wanting to "push" your invention into the market without a reasonable problem/solution fit.
Experience shows that the urge to find a commercialise product directly is strong at the beginning. Pondering over "ready-baked" start-up ideas, however, does little good.
Instead, try to find unsolved problems, investigate them and narrow them down. However, you must realise that it is difficult to find a widespread and solvable problem that is obvious to everyone and has not yet been solved. Problem identification is complicated by existing habits, lack of understanding of the problem and deeper or particularly complex causes of the problem.
The core of this chapter is to discover problems and understand those who have them as accurately as possible.
Below you will find a video on the topic of Customer Discovery and the corresponding slides from one of our previous events.
Now it's your turn.
- Find 89+ problems and identify one problem you would like to address in the rest of the Academy.
That sounds like a lot at first. However, you will soon realise that there are quite a few problems in our everyday life. Below you will also find some tips and tricks on how to detect problems.