Why it’s Wise to ask Whys

With the wide adoption of lean start-up methodologies championed by Ash Maurya, Alex Osterwalder, Eric Ries, Steve Blank and others, today’s start-ups often start their journey with the all important question: ‘what is the problem that you are solving?’.

However, many aspiring founders take a superficial approach to the problem question, quickly skipping over it before getting stuck into the more interesting work of building the solution.

Here’s a typical conversation I often find myself in:

ME: "So tell me about your business idea."

ASPIRING FOUNDER: "We are developing an app to help people remember where they parked their car."

ME: "That’s interesting. What is the problem that it solves?"

AF: "Well, the problem is that an app like this doesn’t exist today."

ME (to myself): "Hmm"

Here the problem is simply the absence of a solution. The problem may not be worth solving. (BTW: This is just an example to illustrate. There are lots of Find my Car apps available to download.)

A really valuable tactic, inspired by Ash Maurya, is to switch from asking ‘what’ to ‘why’ - ‘why is that a problem?’, to start every answer with 'That's a problem because .....', and to keep asking the ‘why’ question until a solid problem emerges. So the conversation goes something like this.

ASPIRING FOUNDER: "We are developing an app to help people remember where they parked their car."

ME: "That’s interesting. What is the problem that it solves?"

AF: "The problem is that owners can spend a lot of time looking for their car, especially in a multi story car park or an unfamiliar area."

ME: "And why is that a problem?"

AF: "That's a problem because people can become stressed, especially if they are elderly, have young children with them or have heavy shopping."

ME: "And why is that a problem?"

AF: "That's a problem because, in some cases, they decide to take public transportation and come back for the car later."

ME: "And why is that a problem?

AF: "That's a problem because they risk getting parking fines."

Running through this process a number of times results in a kind of "Problem Tree", with different branches resulting in either problems or non-problems.

And how do you recognise a good problem? The core problem for a business most likely relates to money - sales are too low, costs are too high or cash flow is tight. For individuals, it is often about money or time - how to make more of both - but it can also be emotional, how to feel better about themselves or how to feel less bad. And business decisions are made by people, so emotion can play a part here too.

Of course, identifying the problem is only the start. Next it's important to consider who has the problem - the customer - and what alternative solutions already exist. But these are subjects for other articles.