One of the most common mistakes people make early on is jumping to a solution too quickly and getting attached.
Instead of growing attached to your solution, fall in love with your customer’s problem.
If you’re early, you’ve got the benefit of avoiding that trap by doing as much problem validation as possible, as early as possible.
Arriving at a solution too early is lethal to a startup’s health for these two reasons:
In short, when you own or create something, you think it’s worth more than other people do.
Just imagine all the times you’ve heard someone else pitch their idea with zeal and excitement and you’ve thought, “Hm. Really? I’m their target market and this solution doesn’t excite me in the least.”
Their enthusiasm is fueled by ownership bias.
Or, think about a time you’ve faced the difficult decision of whether to keep pushing or abandon a project that seems to be failing. You haven’t reached your goals yet, but you’ve already sunk in a chunk of time and money! And we’re almost there … just one more push. That’s the sunk cost dilemma.
Those biases are heavy and they are real and you want to avoid falling victim to them for as long as you can!
This is why you should be doing customer discovery work to start getting familiar with the problem before you race to a solution.
And as you’re researching the problem, be objective about just how painful it is. Remember, you want to spend your time building a painkiller, not a vitamin.
- Begin doing customer discovery before you pay for or write a line of codeThe Dos and Don’ts of Customer Discovery InterviewsLearn the best practices for conducting customer discovery interviews, including starting small, listening for pain, giving first, and keeping the stakes low. Discover why it’s important to find a small handful of customers and get a deep understanding of their problems, and how to avoid convincing yourself that every inconvenience your audience runs into is a problem they would pay to solve.
- Is your idea a vitamin or a painkiller?Are You Building a Vitamin or a Painkiller? Why Painkillers Always WinLearn why building a painkiller product is crucial for your startup’s success. Discover the telltale signs of a vitamin product and how to identify pain points through customer research.
Give those two articles a bit of your time and be as objective with yourself as you can. If you’re starting your journey with a solution in mind before you’ve validated the problem, you might be in for a world of pain that could be avoided.