Do you love the problem you solve, or the solution you provide?
A young founder reached out just a few weeks ago for feedback regarding his trouble raising capital. During a brief exchange it became clear what was missing was any kind of customer traction. He spent time explaining what his solution does and how it addresses a real problem – but there was no customer validation. The few early prospects who expressed interest actually dropped off before the stage that actually required some (effort) investment from them – a pilot.
The founder was baffled. How can they not see how my great solution can help?
His product is in the people-tech space and his core customer is a head of HR. Hence, think of the cliff to overcome with any pilot – the investment means not only time on the customer’s part, but also the users – their employees.
It quickly became further apparent he didn’t quite understand the problem from the point of view of his core customer. Was it something they were even dealing with in their job? Or was education needed first to make them aware there is an opportunity for improvement? What is the cost of doing nothing? What are other solutions they may employ once the problem becomes apparent for them?
My take always has been – customer first. Understand the problem as they see it, and frame your solution as the way to make the problem go away. So I confidently pushed him – talk to more potential core customers, dig into their needs, understand their language. This approach has always been my go-to.
That confidence I had got shaken up a bit about a week later. Jim Collins in BE 2.0 speaks of respective merits of market pull versus idea push in the innovation process. Reading his take, I got a bit freaked out. Jim brings up a whole slew of examples where the idea push worked, as the customers didn’t know what they needed until they saw it. Re-reading his approach made me doubt the infallibility of my nearly dogmatic approach. I had to go for a long walk to think it through (personal note – I pace a lot when thinking, so fairly often get kicked out of the house by the rightfully annoyed family).
Here comes my current frame of thought on the dilemma: Jim is talking about the innovation process itself – coming up with and realizing an idea. Of course many companies started bootstrapping something no-one knew they needed. However, I’m sure at some point, having validated they can do something valuable, they needed to start talking to customers. Even if they only started with just a focus group or an internal customer. Many great products came about as a scratch to their inventor’s own itch.
Validation in the market is a key, especially if an investment beyond the friends and family round is needed to move things forward. Talk to customers, without selling them anything. Learn about how they see the problem you are trying to solve. Pivot if necessary. Develop your language and positioning along the way. You’ll move ahead much, much faster.
Do you understand your customers’ needs the way they perceive them?
