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This is a simple worksheet as used in class to map out your desires and think about problems worth fixing.

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Not sure how to come up with the next big business idea? Don't worry about it. Ideas are not that important. Better to focus on:

1. Constraining the problem you are trying to solve

2. Understanding what technologies are available to help solve the problem

3. Continuously interact with the problem, be brave and pivot if needed

4. Executing really, really, well

In detail..

Ah, exclaimed the man sitting next to me (a pre COVID-19 experience, of course), if only I'd thought of that. His phone was in his hand, his finger hovering over a news story about another startup IPO. Those creative startup folks had figured out what the world needs. Within a short three, four, or five-year period, they'd managed to turn an into a successful .

At least from a distance, those years seem like no time at all. For those burning the midnight oil in a cramped office, it must have felt differently.

"If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time," said Steve Jobs. What that means, is that ideas don't magically turn into business success. They evolve over (long) time.

But those great business ideas, from where do they come?

Every business wants to have the next great idea, and if not, at the least to have some great ideas on how existing solutions can be improved. Because we all know that if we reverse engineer success to its inception, we will find a great idea at the very start of the process.

Business ideas don't come from a magical repository but from performing an activity. And the activity that brings ideas to the light of day is that of solving well-defined problems-the more defined and constrained the problem, the better.

The more defined and constrained the problem, the better
getty

We all love those stories of light bulb moments..

..when Archimedes floated in a bath and discovered volume and density. Or when Newton happened to sit under a falling apple.

Maybe these stories are real, or perhaps they are myths. But what is certain is that rarely does someone come up with an idea for a problem they never considered. It is the people who try to solve problems, night and day, that come up with solutions.

So, tip #1 is to find a problem and actively try and solve that problem. And it can't be any problem; it needs to be a well-defined problem. Here is an example I read a long time ago (my apologies to the source or my memory lapse.) Consider the following challenge: Come up with three new patents that no one has invented yet. Take a minute or so before reading on.

Pretty hard, isn't it?

Now, try and invent three exercises to stretch your back while you are sitting down. Take a minute for that.

That was much easier. But why is that? Because coming up with a patent on "any topic" is too broad-it's too big, it's not constrained or defined. Coming up with a solution to such a general question is damn tricky. But when the problem is well defined (you in a chair with an aching back), it is easy to develop new ideas. People like to say, "think out of the box." On the contrary, think in the box, and if the box does not exist, define it as tight as you can.

Contrary to common belief, it's better to think inside the box
getty

Tip #2 is to know which dots exist so you can connect the dots.

We all read the same blogs, are exposed to the same Twitter accounts, watch the same movies, and listen to the same music. As a result, we share similar experiences and understand the world the same way. Whatever problem we solve, we use the available Lego bricks to construct a solution - and we are all aware of the same "Lego bricks". These may be "idea bricks," "scientific bricks," or "technology bricks." But to be able and solve your well defined problem, you need to know which bricks are available and what each can do. It will be tough to solve a problem using Computer Vision or Natural Language Processing if you don't know these technologies exist or how they function.

But if you understand these technologies, a portal to new solutions enabled by Computer Vision or NLP will arise when a problem needs a solution.

To this end, when issues arise, similar solutions sprout out simultaneously around the world. People look at problems, understand the available tools, and connect the dots based on what they know (the "Lego bricks.")

Robert K. Merton defined this occurrence as "multiple independent discoveries." Instances in which similar discoveries are made by scientists working independently of each other. Calculus was invented by Newton and Leibniz almost simultaneously; the theory of evolution is most commonly associated with Darwin but was thought up by Wallace at the same time. We can tell similar stories about the discovery of Brownian motion (Einstein/Smoluchowski), and the list goes on. When we look at all of these inventions, we will see they are grounded on two principles. First, understanding the problem very well and second, understanding the available tools to develop a solution.

What do you see? To connect the dots, you first need to know which dots exist and what each one can ... [+]
getty

So why aren't we all millionaires?

Why can't we all come up with great ideas and solutions?

Suppose it's just up to a well defined problem and understanding what tools are available. Why are we not all inventors and millionaires profiting from our inventions? Being immersed in a problem and continuously refining your toolbox is a big part of it. But here I will say that ideas don't matter so much. Having a great idea is not enough.

The harsh reality is that in today's world, problems are complex and multifaceted. We need to address the user's needs and find technologies that work. We are challenged by connecting legacy systems with cutting edge technologies. Regulations and compliance demand attention. Business models and revenues must be satisfied.

When we say we "have an idea," rarely do we mean that it encapsulates a solution for all of these challenges. To this end, an idea is just the very start of a journey. And as the journey continues, more of these problems will be answered, and as a result, the so-called "idea" will change and evolve.

An idea at the end of the day is just an assumption of how things will work. As we move from an idea to a Proof of Concept, a Minimum Viable Product, Alpha, and Beta releases, we learn more about the solution and the problem. And as a result, the "idea" changes. So don't get so hung up on having a "great idea" before you start. Just look for a starting point good enough to start taking a stab at the problem; better and improved versions will arrive by interacting further with the problem. And this is ip #3: don't overstress the importance of the original idea; interacting with the problem repeatedly is more critical.

Finally, tip #4: Ideas do not live in a vacuum.

Realities change. We go through economic crises, pandemics, the evolution of technology, challenges from competitors, and shifting end-user desires. All of these eliminate some problems while creating new ones. As the issues and challenges morph, solutions must be agile. Especially in our age of rapidly evolving technology, "great ideas" have a short shelf life.

Netflix started off renting DVDs, but had to change to online streaming. Amazon started as a bookstore, evolved to an everything store, developed AWS and then Alexa. These changes in direction, where businesses focus on one idea before moving in a different direction, are called "Pivots." For such pivots to succeed, yes, you need to understand the problem. You must know what technology tools are available. Lastly, you have to execute. Problem solvers may be theoreticians, but business builders must know how to execute exceptionally well.

In all of the above context, how important are ideas? Ideas are only as good as the path they set you on, and the distance you will travel on this path is only as long as your ability to define problems, understand the technology, and execute. Without understanding the problem at hand, without understanding what tools are available and executing extremely well, the path will be a very short one.

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Ideas Don't Matter. What I Understand After 20 Years Of Innovation

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Not sure how to come up with the next big business idea? Don't worry about it. Ideas are not that important. Better to focus on: Constraining the problem you are trying to solve Understanding what technologies are available to help solve the problem Continuously interact with the problem, be brave and pivot if needed Executing really, really, well Ah, exclaimed the man sitting next to me (a pre COVID-19 experience, of course), if only I'd thought of that.

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ARE YOU A STARTUP TRAINER, ENTREPRENEUR OR ECOSYSTEM DEVELOPER?

The knowledge available is all fragmented and doesn't give you a well-defined framework and an overview of the entire startup journey.

That's why, after 10+ years collaborating with many different startup ecosystems around the world, we decided to capture all the knowledge in an online platform.
​
Remove the highest universal risks on the startup journey and avoid reinventing the wheel!

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The knowledge available is all fragmented and doesn't give you a well-defined framework and an overview of the entire startup journey. That's why, after 10+ years collaborating with many different startup ecosystems around the world, we decided to capture all the knowledge in an online platform.​ Remove the highest universal risks on the startup journey and avoid reinventing the wheel!

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I.Finding a problem that needs to be solved

In Chapters 3-5, we will go through the journey from having an idea to creating a sustainable scalable business ready to have a global impact. We don't mean that this is a recipe for guaranteed success. Every startup is unique and the right things to do are different. However, based on learnings from previously successful entrepreneurs, the presented ways of working and thinking can increase your chance of success.

A startup is a group of experiments - an iterative process trying to find a solution to a problem and a way to create a sustainable business around it. Here the process is described in chronological order, but in reality the phases often overlap and you can go back and forth.

Few successful startup stories are textbook examples. However, to find the best way of working for each unique situation, you need to understand the textbook examples first. That is what we want to provide here: the fundamental basics so that you can take them and be creative.

When you set out to create something new, you have to consider many different questions, such as who is your customer, how will you reach them, and how can you stand out from the competition. However the most fundamental question you should start with is this: what problem am I solving?

To build a sustainable business, you have to solve a repeatable problem that many people or businesses have - and that they are willing to pay for a solution for this problem.

Even though it's possible to create hype and get people interested in a product that's just a "cool thing", if it doesn't actually solve a real problem people will eventually stop using it. The same rule applies for intrapreneurs building a new product or venture inside a larger organization. An initiative is much more likely to succeed when it's built around solving a problem.

Where to get started

But how can you find a real problem that someone has and validate that you have a problem worth solving?

One good way is to start with your own everyday life. You probably encounter problems or simply things that annoy you on any given day, whether at work, home, or school. For example, in a typical Nordic country this could be something like:

you have to wait a long time to get your food at lunch

taxis are expensive and never available when you need one

email is a slow and inefficient way to communicate at work

people are eating a lot of red meat even though it's bad for the planet

you want to buy or sell an apartment, but real estate agent fees are high

In fact, some problems are so ingrained you probably don't even think of them as problems any more. People might think this is just how things have to work.

There are also many problems that are not everyday things but can have a huge negative effect on someone's life, like illnesses caused by rare diseases. Looking at the UN Sustainable Development Goals can also give a ready-made list of bigger problems in this world crying out for a solution. Things like:

Helping to educate people

Ensuring access to clean water

Making energy cleaner

Providing working sanitation

Cleaning up plastic waste from oceans

What are UN SDGs?

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of 17 goals adopted by all United Nations Member States as a "universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030."

There are three key things you should keep in mind when trying to find a problem that needs solving:

1) Is it an important problem?

When you're building a startup or a new product, it's important that the business is built around a problem that you think is important. That's why making money or becoming famous and respected shouldn't be primarily motivators for an entrepreneur to start building a new business. Instead, you should spend time thinking about what gets you motivated and how you can build that around activities that you enjoy - regardless of financial success. Then at least you'll be getting to work with something you like while (hopefully) also growing your business.

2) Is this something you like doing on a daily basis?

Another important point is to choose something that you enjoy doing on a daily basis. This is not to say that you will always get to do things that you like. On the contrary, while building a startup you will certainly face tasks that aren't fun. But if the root problem you chose is important enough to you, it will help keep you motivated.

3) Do you have an understanding of the problem?

Most successful entrepreneurs have solved a problem that they encountered in their own life. When you have a personal relationship with the problem, it's often easier for you to understand it, and you're probably more motivated to solve it. How you are involved with the problem can of course vary and you don't necessarily have to have in-depth experience. Having a personal relationship with the problem can also mean that a friend or family member has experienced it.

Insights from an Entrepreneur - Value Based Entrepreneurship

Johan Brand is a creative technology entrepreneur. He is the Co-Founder of Kahoot!, one of the world's fastest-growing learning brands with over 70 million unique monthly active users in 200+ countries. Johan shares us the story of Kahoot & how he sees entrepreneurship.

How did you become an entrepreneur?

I began studying in a business school, but quit after three months. It felt like I wasn't learning practical skills, just theory. This took me to art school studying photography to learn more creative skills, how to ask questions from the world and originate my own ideas.

At art school, I learned to deal with uncertainty and understanding things that have no given answers. This was also where I could vocalize my own taste and values. Critiques force you to defend your choices and can also answer your own questions of why. This is a skill I am so fortunate to have learned and find so much more relevant. At the time, I didn't know I would become an entrepreneur but discovered my interest & talent in starting new things.

When working in London, I got more and more interested in play as human behavior. I see it as our first language. It is what we do with animals or with other humans if we don't have a common language. This is the entry into developing relationships.

At the time, I was introduced to the other founders of Kahoot. They were working on other projects, but we were all in a similar field. We connected through aligned views of the world. Our drive was coming together and seeing problems that needed to be solved. We brainstormed, challenged each other and fell in love with different ideas. In the end, we chose the best bits and pieces that fit our collective vision.

However, none of our ideas were so exciting that we would be willing to give up our careers. We started to think, for what are we ready to sacrifice everything - and then we realized that the problem with education needs to be solved.

We wanted to make learning awesome and as fun as hanging out with your friends after school. To do this, there needs to be engagement, play, and social interaction.

We started to think about what does it mean: how can we make people engage more? Technology plays a big part in how both students and adults connect outside of work or the classroom. Now we just had to find a way how technology can enable learning to be cool. In school classrooms, we saw students using clunky, dated clickers to give answers. Why couldn't we turn everyone's smartphone into a personal gaming controller you always have with you? Our vision emerged to turn the outdated, boring classrooms into a game show with everyone's phone being the controller.

The first step was to help the teachers get behind our idea. They needed to be the ones to introduce the game as something cool and then have their students log on to the platform. It's no fun to be a teacher in your 40s with technology native students trying to do something with technology and fail.

We invented the pin code engage model. This means when the participants sign up, they will see their names on a big screen. Everyone wants to see their name on a big screen and get their 2 minutes of fame. This was our first innovation, creating a fun way to connect to the game which is actually a game itself.

Our research led us to quizzes as very engaging types of games that also work pedagogically. This entry point is the hook to have people to engage with the platform.

I think it's important to understand that your customer might not be the user: you might create value for someone using the product, but someone else is actually paying.

At first, we defined our two users as students and teachers. Both need to have equal value, but both have different objectives. Teachers need to be able to facilitate the game and gain learning value while the students need to be able to participate in the game and gain social value. Our goal was to take both user needs into account, but have them somehow meet in the middle.

Turning the product into a business

It was clear we needed teachers to use the product. If their students love it, the teachers would use it again. This we coined, product-led growth. Once we created a product that the teacher would adopt and students would use, we gave it out for free to the end-users. If both the users adapted well, we used that leverage to sell the school administration on the value of this becoming a paid service.

However, it was very clear from day one that schools were just a laboratory for business. This product works on a basic, humanistic level for all. We opened our target groups to workplaces or social gatherings and now have found commercial growth as well.

Value-based-entrepreneurship

At Kahoot, our goal is to ensure the product is always free for students and extract the value from businesses. I call it value-based entrepreneurship: you create solutions that add value before you extract value for yourself. Of course, I want people to have commercial success, but only as a consequence of having a positive impact. By giving, you also tend to get back - this is a fundamental attitude of a good entrepreneur.

A while ago I also founded a company called The EntrepreneurShipOne. I identified that the Ocean and its potential for a sustainable future was not part of the public agenda, neither at school or political level. I wanted to take action in solving that problem. We facilitate voyages and expeditions with entrepreneurs, politicians, and corporations to physically expose them to the problem and the solutions within technology and entrepreneurship that can provide solutions for the betterment of the world. At the moment, this is not a commercial business, but a community built on creating positive, societal impact. There could be a commercial element to draw from this venture at some point, but first, we should have a positive impact.

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II. Validating the problem
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Finding a problem that needs to be solved

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I.Finding a problem that needs to be solved In Chapters 3-5, we will go through the journey from having an idea to creating a sustainable scalable business ready to have a global impact. We don't mean that this is a recipe for guaranteed success. Every startup is unique and the right things to do are different.

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I was wondering what are the biggest problems we have on earth today. I know there are thousands, millions or even billions of problems to solve. I get asked so often on Quora or at startup events what problems do actually exist that could be solved, that I compiled this list of 100+ global problems worth solving, after a day research on the Internet and my own observation.

Of course this list is far from being complete. It's just a tiny start.

CONTRIBUTE
And you can add to this list of "global problems worth solving" on our Google Drive. Feel free to add yourself to the contributor list. Do not spam it - please.
We will update this post once in a while.

(1) Building a platform that collects problems, anybody can contribute and be curated by the community.
ENVIRONMENT
(2) Inventing new material or techniques to replace plastic
(3) Inventing new techniques, and materials to replace paper
(4)Inventing new techniques and products, recycling any given material
(5) Inventing new materials replacing plastic bottles and cups
(6) Creating new ways to package food (100's of varieties of food) environmentally friendly
(7) Finding artificial, yet environmentally friendly replacement for wood to reduce deforestation
(8) Inventing new motors that neither use electricity nor fuel
EDUCATION
(9) Finding ways to augment education in conventional schools and universities with highly relevant education
(10) Creating social education programs that can run in parallel to schools, universities or jobs
(11) Offering classes for undergrads, how to get successful and rich
(12) Providing better base education programs on political know how
(13) Providing better education programs on the general concept of economies
(14) Providing better education on how wars are started and how peace is achieved and maintained today
(15) Creating more tangible lifelong learning concepts
(16) Creating more universally applicable career guidance mechanisms or platforms
(17) Creating solutions to shift from an "all learn - all work" model to a more balance model
ENERGY
(18) Exploring new ways to generally reduce and safe energy
(19) Providing a more transparent and plausible energy consumption prediction for the scenario that most people on earth are out of poverty, living in newly developed countries
(20) New ways to harvest energy from bio thermal energy sources
(21) New ways to harvest solar energy
(22) New ways to harvest hydro energy
(23) Finding ways to transmit energy created on the moon, down to earth
(24) Identifying new ways to harvest energy from unidentified sources
(25) Finding all new ways to store electric energy in bigger volume and less in size and weight
(26) Smart energy re-distribution for those who produce excess energy that can be provided to others
PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGY
(27) Lower cost reliable Internet connections
(28) Independent and reliable "News & Information Publishing" organization
(29) Better, social media integrated search engines
(30) All new and modern operating systems
(31) Fully integrated business application tools
(32) Meteorology technology provider not only for weather forecasts but for everything agricultural
(33) Generally available intelligent traffic lights, connected to a traffic flow system, but autonomous features
(34) Low cost mini satellites to explore earth and space, provide data hubs, accessibility and more
(35) Omnipresent, inexpensive and easy mobile payment system
(36) Building robots for all kinds of dedicated tasks such as cleaning shoes, planting crops, cleaning windows, etc.
(37) The whole range of wearable products counting, watching, recording, measuring all kinds of things underway
(38) Situation dependent automatically changing materials to turn a lofty t-shirt into a rain covering shirt
(39) Smart materials that change their behavior based on environmental conditions i.e, taking the carbon out of carbon dioxide and returning the dioxide back to air
(40) Smart Contract development for cryptocurrency agnostic blockchain like media
(41) Universal low voltage power connection system that handles everything from a single wall plug to staggering distribution
(42) Creating universal ultra small IOT devices that allows any product to be programmed by a smartphone including remote controls, refrigerators, heaters, air conditioner, lights - anything. One interface for any product in the future.
(43) New better zipper that do not stuck, break or derail

WATER & SANITATION

(44) New ways to get to clean water
(45) Better ways to turn salt water into sweet water
(46) New ways to manage waste water in rural areas
(47) Cheaper ways to produce sanitation products i.e. toilets
(48) All new toilette models alleviating paper use
(49) More efficient ways for flushing toilets than using precious water
(50) New product for cleaning replacing bathtubs and showers or make their use a less used luxury
(51) More water consumption sensitive products such as water cranes, showers, garden watering systems
FOOD & DIET
(52) New ways to offer unified insights into the ingredients of food in any supermarket
(53) Ways to eradicate factory farming (mass animal farming)
(54) More scientifically proven and generally understood advice to a healthy diet
(55) New ways to provide food portions in smaller sizes to stimulate reduction of food consumption and reduction of food waste

RESEARCH, DATA & INFORMATION

(56) Finding new ways to research all the facts and sources of climate change
(57) Finding new ways to deal with climate change and leverage the development so far
(58) Finding ways to predict climate change more precisely for the next 50 years and provide meaningful indications for the agricultural industry
(59) Better ways to organize research in general, creating more unbiased data.
(60) Catalog of things that could be done with AI and inspires developer
(61) An AI development system that could be used by virtually anybody
(62) Research for a more rational view of the evolving powers of Artificial Intelligence
(63) Creating algorithms that focus on environmental dependencies of new technologies
(64) Identify new ways that help certain countries to get off of the data protection hysteria
(65) New suggestions for data privacy models that give more power to the individual
(66) Developing ways to deal with the general risk of eradicating life through asteroids
(67) Developing scenarios to evacuate earth if needed, even though we would probably take 1,000 years to find the technical possibilities.
(68) New tools and platforms to interact with governments and communities
(69) New apps that cover all of the problems, allow to contribute in all kinds of ways and see reports
(70) 3-D printing companies, producing unique products, spare-parts, artificial organs, and more
(71) Cyber security improvements to significantly reduce or even alleviate hack attacks
(72) Data ownership mechanisms, rules and technology that makes sure that personal data are controllable by its owner
INDUSTRY
(73) Providing better technology for customer experience management
(74) Providing a new value system for corporate balance sheets involving employee contribution
(75) Providing new ways to offer equity to highly innovative employees
(76) Develop new systems that can track the degree of innovation development
(77) Design new systems for customer interaction with corporations
(78) Design new corporate employee education systems including lifelong learning
(79) Create a fortune 100,000 leader board with indexes addressing environmental, employee and other key aspects
(80) Creating all new insurance business models that provide much more contract transparency and easier to deal with
(81) Online grocery stores with home delivery like a few in Germany or Switzerland
(82) New media business models, disrupting the user unfriendly monopolies
(83) Much easier booking systems for public transportation anywhere in the world
(84) Creating systems that alleviate waiting (in line, at doctors, at shops, at bus stops....)
SOCIETY
(85) More effective ways to deal with birth control in times where we help more people to survive
(86) Starting large scale research that can only be done with tens of thousands of supporters
(87) Finding better ways to deal with migration, integration and return mechanisms
(88) Finding ways to replace prisons with socially effective methods of societal reintegration
(89) Finding new policies to deal with people ignoring the generally accepted rules of societal coexistence
(90) Finding solutions to get to a broader reach of well being for all humans
(91) Developing new political concepts or new varieties of democracy that is more applicable in today's world
(92) Developing new job concepts for people who work on social or macro economic solutions to be financed
(93) Developing new concepts for city creation addressing the bigger problems of today's cities
(94) Developing new and holistic ways to reduce traffic congestion in larger cities
(95) Developing new logistical concepts to bring the huge amount of products directly to the citizens
(96) Developing new techniques to transport the remaining waste to the designated areas without the current waste disposal chain
(97) Finding new methods to alleviate corruption in government and other large organizations
(98) Finding new mechanisms to make governments more accountable, providing rewards and punishment solutions based on their achievements relative to their promises
HEALTHCARE
(99) New ways to provide a more balanced healthcare for the various developed nations
(100) New ways to provide healthcare in the first place for developing nations
(101) New ways for mental health care
(102) New ways to produce cheaper medicine or secure living without medicine

This list of "global problems worth solving" will sooner or later grow much bigger. We are looking forward to your inputs.

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100+ global problems worth solving - World Innovations Forum

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I was wondering what are the biggest problems we have on earth today. I know there are thousands, millions or even billions of problems to solve. I get asked so often on Quora or at startup events what problems do actually exist that could be solved, that I compiled this list of 100+ global problems worth solving, after a day research on the Internet and my own observation.

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I used these three product rules to find the biggest problem people have with documents. And I've solved it. Learn more about my new product FYI.

About two years ago, my co-founder Marie Prokopets and I got really interested in fundraising. We were talking about fundraising to companies all the time and giving them advice about how to raise money. I had more requests for fundraising conversations than ever before. A dam had burst.

We thought there must be a problem for us to solve in the fundraising market, so we dug in with research.

That ingle tweet led to us interviewing 37 people, all of whom had serious challenges with fundraising.

Kaboom. We had discovered a huge problem! We learned a few core things in our research that informed what we ended up building:

1. Fundraising takes up a lot of time. Founders want to be freed up to work on their business and product.

2. Most people lack knowledge about the fundraising process. They often aren't sure what they should do next and don't know when they should fundraise.

3. Most pitch decks go through a dozen or more iterations based on feedback from people. Despite all the work that goes into them, many are weak and built from templates that are more than a decade old.

4. Most companies fail at raising money.

We did a couple dozen more interviews until we were convinced we were onto something.

As soon as we felt we'd done enough research, we started building dogo, a tool that lets founders get feedback on their pitch decks and share them with investors.

Here's what the early version of dogo looked like:

In just a few weeks, we had hundreds of customers using dogo to get feedback on their pitch decks and share their decks with investors. We also had dozens of people tell us stories of how critical dogo was while they were raising money.

But we never launched dogo. We killed it.

It's not because people don't find it useful.

It's not because we couldn't find users for it.

After all, the fundraising market is quite large. There were 5,948 US VC deals closed in 2017 according to Pitchbook. Global funding was over $164B across 11,042 deals in 2017 according to CB Insights.

There are so many companies vying for VC money, that each closed deal means there were hundreds, even thousands of companies that wanted to be funded but weren't.

The biggest problem founders have is pitching investors and raising money. But that problem just wasn't enough. We misjudged the market.

We didn't realize it at the time but we made a classic startup mistake.

The funny part: we stopped working on dogo without realizing our mistake. We started to notice subtle problems with the product. People weren't willing to pay, companies went radio silent after raising their round or failing to, we had trouble getting the perfect set of features that got everyone excited.

Something felt off.

We weren't sure what the root cause was at the time but we decided to pivot anyway.

That's when I came up with an idea that let us copy and paste our code. My team still makes fun of me for this.

We took what we learned from dogo and repackaged it into a new product called Draftsend. We had learned during dogo customer interviews that people wanted to add their voice to presentations, so we decided to make that a core feature of Draftsend.

With Draftsend, people could share PDFs and see what recipients did with them, plus they could add audio to those PDFs. There were many companies in the space like DocSend and Clearslide. We had an innovative approach that focused on audio.

Not once did we think about the market, nor did we think about the slew of document sharing competitors who were being sold or closed down. We were so intently focused on our innovative idea. We thought we were bulletproof thanks to the novelty of adding audio to PDFs.

At first, it seemed like our ingenuity and copy-and-paste strategy paid off.

We had over 2,000 people subscribe to our Product Hunt Upcoming early access page. People were tweeting about us like crazy! And when we launched on Product Hunt, we had over 1,700 upvotes, over 130 comments, plus loads of reviews of the product. We were the #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt.

But the buzz quickly faded.

The idea was novel and fun, yes. But we had fallen into the same trap as we did on dogo.

With dogo and Draftsend, we assumed we were targeting giant markets. But we never took the time to actually think about it and ask ourselves questions that might change our approach.

Questions like:

Who will pay for the product?

How many customers need this product?

Is the market currently growing?

Which segments of the market are growing the fastest?

Will this market grow in the future?

We didn't ask ourselves these questions because, quite frankly, we were blinded by the problems we had discovered. We didn't take a step back to actually think about the market and the opportunity we were heading into.

With dogo, we had created a product that was episodic and in a small market category where people wouldn't actually be able to pay for the service we offered. Companies don't raise money every day or every month. They only raise money a handful of times, ever, if at all. On top of that, the customers didn't actually have the money to pay us, and what we had created for them wasn't really valuable enough for them to pay.

Our excitement had blinded us. And we were blinded again when we built Draftsend by reusing code from dogo.

Though the idea is innovative, the presentation sharing market is actually quite small. We thought that by adding audio we'd be sitting in the video market, but people had too many feature expectations for us to compete with video software. We were stuck between a rock and a hard place, in a small market. And we realized it would take us too much effort to make the business a success.

Making this mistake once was painful. But twice... even worse. These mistakes still hurt. Marie and I are both still embarrassed about chasing imaginary markets instead of focusing on market size early before going down the path of building a product. We wasted our time and resources chasing the wrong opportunities.

There's a right way to think about your product and how it fits into a market. We did it the wrong way with dogo and Draftsend. Through these two failures, we've developed a few rules that have led us to building our third product, FYI.
The first rule: Market size matters
Don't get too excited about a problem unless it's worth building a business around.
What's a problem that's worth building a business around?
The market should be large. Market size is the first thing that investors look for. Which used to make me angry to no end. I just didn't get it every time I heard it. Market size always felt like the wrong way to think about your business in the early days. It seemed like a lot of thinking about an opportunity instead of just attacking it.

I used to think investors would talk about market size because they needed big outcomes. They needed the companies they invested in to go public or be sold in order to make their money back and more.

But I was wrong. Investors are right. Investors are looking to invest in companies that are likely to succeed, and one thing they use to determine that is the market size of the opportunity. They are looking for businesses that can serve millions (or even billions) of users and/or ones that can earn billions in revenue. They are chasing big market opportunities and looking for founders that are eager to do that.

If you want to chase a small opportunity, that's ok. But you're decreasing your chances of success right from the beginning. Targeting a market where you can only potentially make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year makes it that much less likely for you to hit your goals in the first place. The bigger the opportunity, the more likely that you'll be able to make a meaningful amount of revenue in the market.
The second rule: Innovate with purpose
We were so innovative when we launched Draftsend. We spent so much time designing a product that would excite users because it was so novel. We even nailed the messaging to describe our innovative product: Presentations you can see and hear. We spent time getting the experience right and making sure the audio recordings worked flawlessly.

But in the end, that innovation was't enough to overcome core problems with the product.

The presentation sharing market was so small it just wasn't worth our time. And we had chosen an innovative angle that made the total addressable market even smaller. Not enough people who shared presentations wanted to add their voice.

Being innovative only matters when you're solving the most painful problem for people.

Innovation for the sake of innovation isn't going to win you a ton of customers. Solving the right problem in the right market is the key to winning enough customers.

Innovation only matters when there are enough customers who are adopting your product.
The third rule: Solve big problems
With Draftsend and dogo, we were pushing the product onto customers. People weren't grabbing either of the products out of our hands. They'd tell us that the products were really cool ideas, and would come up with their own ways to use them. For example, people told us they wanted to use Draftsend for all sorts of things, like customer success presentations, sales pitch presentations, consulting presentations, feedback on decks, pitch decks, team onboarding presentations.

The excitement people had and ideas they mentioned about how they'd use the product were, sadly, false indicators. We mistook the positive feedback we were getting for us having Product/Market fit.

We were so blinded by our excitement about innovative ideas and markets we thought were large, that we allowed ourselves to be biased by positive feedback. We knew the right things to do, but we ended up chasing shiny objects instead of being methodical and objective.

When it came to charging customers for those two products, we quickly realized we were solving problems people weren't actually willing to pay for. The problems just weren't painful enough.

There were more important problems for us to solve in the document space. And we found those problems when we started doing additional customer development to make sure we were headed in the right direction on Draftsend.

Want to learn more about the biggest, most important problem we discovered in the document space? Sign up for early access to FYI.

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Find the biggest problem worth solving with these three product rules

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I used these three product rules to find the biggest problem people have with documents. And I've solved it. Learn more about my new product FYI. About two years ago, my co-founder Marie Prokopets and I got really interested in fundraising.

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One of the most common (and deadly) mistakes in entrepreneurship is creating a solution before identifying the problem.

You might think you have the next big idea, but have you really done the research to see if it could be successful? Is there a need in the marketplace? Is the space full of slow-moving companies unwilling to change? Then maybe you have an opportunity. If not, you might be wasting money and time.

If you really want to obtain success, the first thing you need to do is find the problem to solve. The problem serves as the foundation for your company.

What is needed + what you can do

It can be very tempting to jump on the next hot idea you have, but so many people fail with fly-by-night operations that have no mission or framework.

Before starting your next company, take a step back and assess two things: the marketplace and your abilities.

Think hard about this. Starting a company is equal parts passion and planning. You need the motivation for both.

First ask yourself, what are you passionate about? Next, what does society (or even just your local neighborhood) need?

The ideal company idea must check off both of those boxes. If you're working hard to fulfill a need, but you hate the work, you'll just end up resenting the company and starting over. If you're building a passion project, but there's no need for the product or service you're offering, generating interest and sales will be impossible.

Still stumped? Here are some of the biggest necessities coming up in the world today: clean energy, robotics, cybersecurity, transportation and artificial intelligence. You'll see hundreds upon hundreds of companies trying to solve those emerging issues, but only a handful with the capability and drive to do so.

Define your problem

Now that you have a list or Venn diagram set up of things you're passionate about (and things that are needed), it's time to trim.

You can even rank your list based on how big the problem is. If you're going for that moonshot idea, make sure you have the skill and capacity to build it out. It's OK to start out small if you're new to this and just want to get your feet wet. If this isn't your first company, aim a little higher on your list.

Find the problem that you actively want to solve, that you are best suited to solve and that has significant opportunity built-in.

Know thy enemies

Once you have your problem in place, odds are someone has tried to solve that same problem.

Look back at companies who have failed to address this problem and figure out why they failed. Did they try to take on too much, too quickly? Was their price point way off target? Did their idea just come too soon, before the demand had matured?

You can use this information to not only avoid similar pitfalls, but to take your business even farther.

If there are still some active competitors in the space, take a hard look at what they offer and at what price. Maybe even have a friend purchase an item or use their service to see where they excel and where they fall short.

When I'm launching a new venture, I don't seek to merely exist among other competitors. I want to dominate the market. To do that, I need to know where I can do better than my competition.

Build your story

Before you start to build your company, you need to define your problem and explain your solution.

This is the thing you'll be telling to investors, friends, partners and people you network with. What is that burning hot idea inside you and how does your company solve that problem uniquely?

Find a way to tell your story in a way that you can repeat every day, without it ever growing old or stale. This is your passion.

Now you have a clearly defined problem, the factor that makes you stand out among the rest and the motivation to get it done. These are the elemental first steps that countless so-called entrepreneurs have skipped, finding only failure.

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Entrepreneurs: Here Is How You Can Find Problems to Solve

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One of the most common (and deadly) mistakes in entrepreneurship is creating a solution before identifying the problem. You might think you have the next big idea, but have you really done the research to see if it could be successful? Is there a need in the marketplace?

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The rigor with which a problem is defined is the most important factor in finding a good solution. Many organizations, however, are not proficient at articulating their problems and identifying which ones are crucial to their strategies.

They may even be trying to solve the wrong problems-missing opportunities and wasting resources in the process. The key is to ask the right questions.

The author describes a process that his firm, InnoCentive, has used to help clients define and articulate business, technical, social, and policy challenges and then present them to an online community of more than 250,000 solvers. The four-step process consists of asking a series of questions and using the answers to create a problem statement that will elicit novel ideas from an array of experts.

Establish the need for a solution. What is the basic need? Who will benefit from a solution?

Justify the need. Why should your organization attempt to solve this problem? Is it aligned with your strategy? If a solution is found, who will implement it?

Contextualize the problem. What have you and others already tried? Are there internal and external constraints to implementing a solution?

Write the problem statement. What requirements must a solution meet? What language should you use to describe the problem? How will you evaluate solutions and measure success?

EnterpriseWorks/VITA, a nonprofit organization, used this process to find a low-cost, lightweight, and convenient product that expands access to clean drinking water in the developing world.

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Reprint: R1209F The rigor with which a problem is defined is the most important factor in finding a good solution. Many organizations, however, are not proficient at articulating their problems and identifying which ones are crucial to their strategies. They may even be trying to solve the wrong problems-missing opportunities and wasting resources in the process.