Creating a product that meets users’ needs is the most important task for any startup. In fact, the number one reason businesses fail is because they don’t solve a significant problem. A product might be innovative, but if it doesn’t address a specific pain point for users, it’s bound to struggle. In this article, we’ll explore how you can go beyond having a great idea and instead focus on creating a product that delivers real value by solving real problems.
We’ll cover the following steps in detail:
- Defining the problem you’re solving
- Evaluating the problem and your solution
- Building a solution that users will adopt
- Testing and improving through feedback
- Ensuring long-term sustainability and defensibility
By the end of this article, you’ll have a thorough framework for defining, evaluating, and creating products that users actually need, want, and will pay for.
1. Defining the Problem You’re Solving
The process of creating a product begins with a deep understanding of the problem you’re solving. Too often, entrepreneurs get attached to their ideas, but ideas in isolation are just floating concepts. They don’t have meaning until they address a specific pain point or opportunity.
The Importance of Defining the Problem
Before anything else, your priority should be to define the problem or unmet need you’re addressing. The clearer your understanding of the problem, the more likely you’ll be able to design a product that resonates with users. Start by asking yourself a few key questions:
- Who is dissatisfied? Identify your target audience. This could be a broad market or a specific niche. For example, are you targeting students in rural areas without access to digital education tools? Or are you addressing professionals seeking better loan comparison platforms?
- What specific problem do they face? Clearly state the issue. Are they dealing with high costs, inefficiencies, or poor user experiences in the current solution?
- Why are existing solutions failing? Understanding why existing products or services aren’t addressing the problem effectively can provide you with a competitive edge.
To break this down further, we use the “For Who” framework. This structure helps you define a target market segment and their specific issues in detail:
For Who: Your product is for a particular group of people. For instance, “For children in marginalized rural areas in Kazakhstan who lack digital literacy…”
Dissatisfied With What: These users are dissatisfied due to a specific unmet need. For example, “… who are dissatisfied with their lack of access to proper educational resources…”
What You Offer: This is your product’s core value. What are you offering to solve the problem? For example, “… we offer a platform that provides them with affordable digital learning tools…”
Key Benefits: The benefits need to be compelling enough to prompt action. Your product should provide clear benefits, such as enabling these children to develop essential skills for the digital economy.
Moving from Ideas to Real Solutions
It’s essential to move beyond the “idea” stage early on. While ideas are valuable, they are not the same as actionable, validated solutions. Ideas are like free-floating objects; they need to be tethered to a real problem before they can have any impact.
Most entrepreneurs are excited to share their ideas, but the truth is that ideas are cheap. What matters is how well an idea addresses a problem. The most valuable thing you can do is focus on understanding the pain your target customers experience and ensure that your product addresses this pain effectively.
2. Evaluating the Problem and Your Solution
Once you’ve defined the problem, the next step is to evaluate both the problem and your solution. This is a critical phase because it’s not enough to solve a problem — you need to solve the right problem for the right group of people.
The User vs. The Customer
A key distinction that often arises is the difference between the user and the customer. The user is the person who interacts with your product, but they may not always be the one paying for it. In some cases, like with educational platforms or healthcare systems, the end-user might be a student or a patient, while the customer could be the government or a philanthropic organization funding the solution.
When building your value proposition, it’s essential to determine who your user is and who your customer is. Both groups need to see value in your solution, and you may need to cater to different needs for each.
Focus on a Minimum Viable Segment (MVS)
Instead of trying to cater to everyone, concentrate on a minimum viable segment (MVS). This is the smallest group of users who have the same needs and can benefit from the same solution. By narrowing your focus, you can refine your product and ensure it meets the needs of this specific group before scaling up.
For example, if you’re building a product for parents of young children, don’t try to appeal to all parents immediately. Instead, focus on a smaller segment, such as working parents who need quick, nutritious meal ideas. By serving this niche group effectively, you can build a foundation for expanding to a broader audience.
Understanding Unworkable, Unavoidable, Urgent, and Underserved Needs
Another useful framework for evaluating the problem is the “4 Us” framework, which breaks problems into four categories:
Unworkable: These are problems that are so severe that they make the current situation untenable. For example, if a mobile app frequently crashes or is impossible to use, it’s an unworkable solution.
Unavoidable: Certain problems are inevitable, like taxes, healthcare, or aging. Products that address unavoidable issues often have a large market because everyone will eventually face these problems.
Urgent: Problems that require immediate solutions, like a broken water pipe or a critical system failure, have a high degree of urgency. If your product addresses an urgent need, you can gain quick adoption.
Underserved: These are areas where there are solutions, but they aren’t meeting the needs of users adequately. For instance, if existing online education platforms are too expensive or inaccessible to children in rural areas, that’s an underserved problem.
When evaluating your product idea, ask yourself: Does it solve a problem that is unworkable, unavoidable, urgent, or underserved? If it does, you’re more likely to build a product that people will prioritize.
3. Building the Solution That Users Will Adopt
With the problem defined and validated, it’s time to build the solution. However, building isn’t just about writing code or designing features — it’s about creating a product that’s easy to adopt, solves the problem effectively, and delivers real value.
The Problem with “Better, Faster, Cheaper”
Many startups fall into the trap of thinking that being “better, faster, cheaper” will guarantee success. While these attributes are important, they are not enough. Large companies with more resources can easily outcompete you on these factors. To succeed, your product must be disruptive, discontinuous, and defensible.
Disruptive:
A disruptive product introduces a completely new way of solving a problem. It might not be better in every way, but it fundamentally changes how users approach a problem. For example, Airbnb didn’t just offer cheaper accommodations — it completely redefined the travel experience by allowing people to stay in homes rather than hotels.
Discontinuous:
A discontinuous innovation is something that wasn’t possible before. The iPhone’s multitouch screen was discontinuous because it revolutionized how people interacted with technology. It allowed for more intuitive, efficient navigation, changing everything from gaming to medical applications.
Defensible:
To ensure long-term success, your product needs a competitive moat. This could be intellectual property, network effects, or high switching costs. For example, social networks like Facebook are defensible because users are deeply embedded in the platform. Even if a new platform is better in some ways, people are reluctant to switch because their friends, content, and memories are on Facebook.
Pain vs. Gain: Why Will Users Change?
Adopting a new product always involves a cost, whether it’s time, money, or the effort required to learn something new. For users to adopt your solution, the gain it provides must significantly outweigh the pain of switching.
A useful way to evaluate this is by measuring the gain-pain ratio:
- Gain: How much time, money, or effort does your product save users? How does it improve their lives or solve their problems?
- Pain: What are the barriers to adoption? Does your product require users to change their behavior, learn a new skill, or integrate it with other tools?
For a user to adopt your product, the gain must be at least 10 times greater than the pain. This might sound high, but users are naturally resistant to change, and if the benefit isn’t substantial, they will likely stick to their current solution.
One classic example is Venmo. While Venmo offers great convenience, it wasn’t immediately successful because users were hesitant to trust a new payment app with their financial information. Venmo overcame this barrier by making sign-ups easy and securing the trust of users through added security features, thus lowering the pain of adoption.
4. Testing and Improving Through Feedback
Even with a well-defined problem and a promising solution, your work isn’t done. To create a product that users need, you must constantly gather feedback and iterate.
The Power of Asking Questions
The best way to improve your product is by talking to your users. Don’t just pitch them your solution — ask them questions. Some of the most important questions to ask include:
- What problem are you trying to solve?
- What existing solutions are you using? Why or why not?
- What’s the biggest frustration with the current solution?
- If you could wave a magic wand, how would you solve this problem?
By getting feedback from real users, you’ll gain insights that help you refine your product. The more feedback you collect, the clearer your path forward becomes.
Continuous Iteration
The process of creating a product that users need isn’t linear. It involves continuous iteration. As you build your solution, you’ll inevitably discover new problems or opportunities. Embrace this process. Every iteration brings you closer to a product that’s truly valuable.
Lean on customer feedback to guide your roadmap, but don’t be afraid to take calculated risks. Sometimes, users won’t even know what they need until they see it. Striking a balance between user feedback and visionary leadership is key to long-term product success.
5. Ensuring Long-Term Sustainability and Defensibility
Once your product gains traction, the next challenge is ensuring that it’s defensible. If you have a great product, competitors will eventually try to replicate your success. That’s why it’s critical to build defensibility into your product from the start.
Intellectual Property and Network Effects
One way to make your product defensible is by securing intellectual property (IP) through patents or trademarks. This is common for technology-based startups that rely on proprietary algorithms, hardware, or processes.
However, IP alone isn’t always enough. Network effects — where your product becomes more valuable as more people use it — are also powerful. Social platforms like Instagram, for example, benefit from network effects because the more people use the platform, the more content is generated, and the more valuable it becomes.
Data as a Competitive Advantage
In today’s digital world, data is one of the most valuable assets a company can have. If your product generates or leverages user data, use that data to create insights or experiences that no competitor can replicate easily. The more data you collect, the stronger your product can become, creating a defensible moat around your business.
Switching Costs
Another way to build defensibility is by creating high switching costs. When users invest significant time or resources into learning your product or integrating it into their workflows, they become less likely to switch to a competitor, even if a similar product becomes available.
For example, Salesforce is deeply embedded in many organizations because it’s tailored to their specific workflows, making it difficult for competitors to lure customers away without forcing them to undergo costly retraining.
Conclusion
Creating a product that users need is not an easy task, but by following the right frameworks, you can increase your chances of success. Start by defining the problem you’re solving, then evaluate your solution critically by testing it with real users. Build your product in a way that makes it easy to adopt while offering significant gains to users. Finally, ensure your product is defensible so that once you’ve gained traction, competitors can’t easily replicate your success.
By focusing on solving real problems, evaluating and iterating through feedback, and building a sustainable product, you can create a solution that users not only need but love.
