Getting Started Involves Looking Inward
A couple of weeks back, I met with someone interested in starting a business but didn’t know where to start. He started throwing out one idea after another based on his skill set, and we had a great discussion about each one of those ideas. After a couple of the ideas, I asked him the following question:
“What problems do you have in your life that you’re trying to solve?”
He paused for a minute before answering – he hadn’t ever thought about this. Many new entrepreneurs look to solutions first based on what they’ve done previously in their careers. Enduring entrepreneurs build things that solve problems for themselves and other people utilizing their skill sets. For example, AirBnB started out as a solution to pay the founders’ rent – solving their own problem – and for people traveling to San Francisco for a conference and not able to find hotel rooms – solving others’ problems.
So, how do you get started on the path to developing the Next Big Thing? It all starts by looking inward.
Solve Your Own Problems First
To be human is to have problems. Some of our problems are pretty minor – what to have for breakfast this morning, which shirt should I wear, should I watch one more show on Netflix before bed? Other problems are global – how do we end homelessness, how do we remove all of the waste plastic from the ocean, how do we achieve world peace? The problems on which you should focus as a new entrepreneur should fall somewhere in between, all the way up to a piece of one of the global problems depending on the skill sets of your cofounding team.
For first-time entrepreneurs and folks considering taking part in Startup Weekend Iowa City, I recommend keeping a list of problems they encounter in their everyday lives in the week leading up to our meeting or the event each July. In going about your day, you will encounter both minor and major roadblocks that may or may not have current solutons on the market. It’s much harder to sit and think about what got in your way the previous week than it is to document the problems as they arise. Don’t think about solutions to these problems as you face them – just document the problems.
As an example, Cider Finder, the app I’m currently developing, came out of this process. I planned to take part in a Startup Weekend in Decatur, Illinois, back in 2017 – the story on how I found this event coming in a future post. I had attend a couple of Startup Weekends previously, but never had gotten up and pitched an idea for the crowd to consider. In the week prior to the event, I thought about all of the different problems I faced from day to day. One of those problems was that I wanted to go out with friends to grab an adult beverage and wished I had a way to know how had specific beers that my friends and I liked – we ended up going to our regular haunt only because we knew that they had what we enjoyed. This isn’t a major problem by any stretch of the imagination, but something that I thought needed a solution. (Cider Finder is a result of several pivots from this original idea, but every business has to start somewhere.)
In thinking about your problems, you will end up ranking these problems from most to least impactful as well as how well you personally could solve each of these problems. It’s perfectly fine if you can’t solve the most pressing problems on your own – more than likely, you know someone who can, and they might be willing to give a partnership with you a try. This is the point where you’re ready to start sharing your problem with the outside world.
Ask Those Around You
Once you’re locked in on a personal problem that needs to be solved, it’s time to consult the circles of people who surround you. Again, don’t devise a solution just yet – you’re trying to figure out whether or not others are having the same problem as you, and if they are, whether or not they have found a solution to the problem. If a solution already exists, congratulations! You’ve eliminated a problem from your life with minimal effort. However, if no solution exists or if they suggest a partial solution, a business opportunity has just opened up in front of you.
Your closest friends and colleagues are the best starting point in learning about others’ problems and the solutions they have found. However, you shouldn’t stop after one or two interviews – this is just the start of your journey. I recommend talking to at least ten people in your first round of Customer Discovery interviews. The old recommendation was to attempt to knock out 100 interviews with minimal change in questions along the way. I am of the belief that you will have a breakthrough after each group of ten interviews, and if you do not have a breakthrough, you need to change your line of questioning.
When you start asking your closest connections questions, make sure you’re asking for at least two recommendations of people from their circle for you to interview. These people might already be in your outer circles or, preferably, people you don’t yet know. When you reach out, make sure you let them know who referred you and make clear that you’re not selling anything – you’re thinking about a problem in your life and looking to see if others have this problem or have found a solution to this problem. Again, you’re not at the stage just yet where you should be developing a solution. The first 40-50 interviews or so are merely a fact-finding mission.
Other Sources of Inspiration
In the ultra-rare instance where all of your personal problems already have solutions and you still have the entrepreneurial spirit, it’s time to dig deeper. Perhaps there is a larger, more global problem you would like to solve. Is there a problem facing your local community that government doesn’t seem well-equipped to handle? What about a statewide issue? Are you currently a business owner who has some hiccup in your supply chain or value chain between you and your customers? Problems surround all of us, from minor annoyances to huge roadblocks.
Your Customer Discovery journey may end up providing you a larger problem to solve, bigger than anything you could have imagined. It’s perfectly fine to pivot your business or your journey due to information you acquire. Cider Finder pivoted from the original idea into the app being developed now because the data from Customer Discovery made us examine our competition more closely. Rather than jumping into direct competition, we decided to shift to a more indirect position, solving more problems for more people.
Pivots and iterations are both a major part of the journey from idea to product, as well as from product to scale. It’s exceedingly rare to strike gold on the first attempt – most of the apps you use actually started out trying to solve completely different problems than they do now. Instagram, for instance, started out as a whiskey and bourbon app, and Slack was a chat feature in an unsuccessful video game. If you stick it out and keep moving forward, you have a much better chance of stumbling across a major problem that needs a solution.
Make Sure The Passion Is There
Regardless of the problem you’re trying to solve, the only way you will perservere through the ups and downs of entrepreneurship is to work on something about which you truly care. Entrepreneurship is a ten to fifteen-year struggle of long days with little recognition. Scott Belsky discussed this process as The Messy Middle, a series of highs and lows in between the celebration of starting the business and the celebration of the eventual exit or IPO. Most of us are deep into the messy middle right now, and I make it a priority to celebrate every win that comes along. This process isn’t for the faint of heart.
I continue to plug away at Cider Finder because I see the need in the community for what I’m building and, when I discuss what I’m doing with those in the cider community, I can see their eyes light up with excitement and intrigue. My soul feeds off of these reactions, and I consider each positive feedback a small win. In building EntrePartners, my soul feeds off the positive energy of people building awesome stuff in the Innovation Center and creating media in the Podcast Studio. I thrive off of the conversations of people who stop by and want to learn how they can get involved in the entrepreneurial community. It’s not sunshine and roses all of the time, but those who “get it” are the best support system out there.
Whatever you end up building, make sure it’s something you’re passionate about and not something where you want to just make a quick buck before moving onto the next project. I suggest that first-timers attend a Startup Weekend event and, rather than pitching something, just hop onto one of the teams that forms on Friday night and help someone build something potentially world-changing. If anything, it will give you the experience and the confidence necessary to build something on your own in the future that you can stand fully behind.
Summary
What are your biggest problems? What are your friends’ biggest challenges? If you’re looking to strike out on your own as an entrepreneur, what is the most pressing issue in your life that needs a solution, and can you build that solution? Can you build a “better mousetrap” if an inadequate solution already exists?
Solve the problems closest to you that mean the most to you. Do something for which you have passion. You could start that service-based business, but does that solve a problem for others that nobody else is successfully solving? Find your niche by looking inward first.
If you’re looking for further reading, two great resources on Customer Discovery are The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick and Talking to Humans by Giff Constable.