Find the Problem
A startup doesn’t begin with a product. It begins with a problem.
Last week I agreed to a discovery call. Founders, full of energy, with a polished presentation. Within five minutes I understood the point of the whole meeting: “We have a solution. We’re looking for a problem to solve with it.”
(Enthusiasm is essential in a startup. Without it, you won’t last. But enthusiasm without proof that the problem exists, and that people actually want it solved, is just a costy hobby. And to enthusiasm I’d add skills, qualifications, and experience as equally necessary. If even one of those is missing, the probability of long-term success drops dramatically.)
I didn’t want to kill their energy. But I also wouldn’t have been helping them if I’d left it without comment.
This is one of the most costly mistakes you can make in a business, and you make it before you spend your first euro.
The logic should go like this: first you identify a real problem in the market. Then you ask whether you’re the right person to solve it. And only then does the product come, as an answer to those first two questions.
market → me → product. Not the other way around.
When you flip it to me → product → market, you’re building on sand. You might have great technology, a strong team, and a nice pitch deck. But if the market doesn’t have that problem, or doesn’t have it the way you assume, all that energy goes nowhere.
Before your next step, ask yourself one question: Who, specifically, is bothered by this problem enough to pay for a solution?
If you don’t have an answer, go back to the beginning. Where it all starts – in the market, not in your head.