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!

  • AnshulYadav@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I think it is a wrong question to ask. You should not be brainstorming to come up with a problem to solve. Because you will have no idea if this problem is valuable enough.

    A better approach would be to find a customer you would like to serve and just figure out ways of having meaningful conversations with them. Then find out what type of conversations your customers find valuable. And us it as a hints about the valuable unsolved problems in your customers life.

  • lanylover@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    u/tomstclair go be an intern somewhere. See how the company that hires you a) fucks up by not satisfying customers b) doesn’t address the market where is need. These are the „problems „ you want to solve.

  • Warhorsemen@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Wait… not being malicous or anything. But serious.

    Youre trying to find problems to solve? 🤨

    How do you not run into problems? I run into probably 230 a day. My problem is I dont have finaces to solve them. Which i guess is a problem I struggle with. Garnering finaces.

    Help me Ill help you! 😂

  • imudayyyy@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    It’s very hard to find a problem. Focus on your own problems and build a business around it

  • jc340095@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Approach could be - Why do people weigh themselves on a scale? They may have concerns about their weight. How do you then encourage them to address that? Attach voice AI to your scale

      • kabekew@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Start in an industry or niche you have experience and some expertise in. Who are the suppliers? What kind of products and services does your company use? Are any of them of poor quality or design? Do you have problems with particular service providers? Then research those companies to see how well they’re doing. If they’re making good money providing a poor product or service, it’s ripe for competition.

      • Machezee@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Think all day in this mindset throughout the day (easier said than done) and keep a notes app of the problems. Before bed look at the problems and think of solutions

  • Super-held@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    i just see problems when companys do not male software or hardware good. writing later examples

  • AnshulYadav@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    That’s easy.

    Problems are everywhere. You just need a method to uncover them.

    To uncover the problem go deeper into the sentence. At a deeper level we all have faced the same problems.

    It is best demonstrated using an example. Here are 10 problems I uncovered from the first half of the first sentence of your post.

    I want to open a new business

    Level 1: I want to open a new business.

    You can make many variations of this problem based on who is the customer.

    Problem 1: How to open a new business if you are stuck in a job?

    Problem 2: How to open a new business if you are single mom with no time for a job?

    Problem 3: How to open a new business if you are an old couple who are bored after retirement?

    Problem 4: How to open a new business if you are a freshmen?

    Level 2: I want to open

    Here you can make variations based on what to open, which will take the sentence to level 1. There you can make further variations based on who is opening.

    Problem 5: How to open a pizza shop?

    Problem 6: How to open up myself to make a presentation?

    Problem 7: How to open my heart for to accept love?

    Level 3: I want

    Here you can make variations based on what are your key desires, which will take it to level 2. There you can make further variations by choosing the instrument of fulfilling these desires.

    Problem 8: How to be happy?

    Problem 9: How to be rich?

    Problem 10: How to be healthy?

    Level 4: It is hard too hard to explain this level in a comment.

  • Sunstoned1@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year 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.

    1. 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.

    2. 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?

    1. 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.

    1. 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.

    1. 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.