What Problem Is Your Startup Solving?

What Problem Are You Solving?

Zach Nies

@zachnies

Entrepreneurs have achance to create the world they want

There is proven science that canimprove your odds of success

What world do you want to create?

What does that feel like?

Success allows you tocreate the world you want and live your dreams

Why am I here tonight?

Success, but theyweren’t living any dream

Discover & promotethe tools that enable success while living the dream

How I got here

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2,500,000customers

Vision: Civil rights and equality for all

Vision: Reinvent collaboration

Amazing team,exactly the culture Idreamed of creating

Great product

One problem: Failed theMilkshake Test

Why am I doing this?

Live inside the Internet

Vision: Solve the world’s hardest problems as citizen engineers

Some contextand some math

Gaussian distributions!"#$%%&()*+,-%&./%0,1234&5%6789667:

Power laws and Pareto distributions!"#$%%&()*+,-%&./%0,1234&5%6789667:

Other Pareto distributions!"#$%%&()*+,-%&./%0,1234&5%6789667:

High impact, lowprobability events

An example

8’1’’ 2’5’’ 3.3 x!"#$%%;;;+5<=<-&#!+0,+>?%1<;/%#)05><-&==<)</%!,;&.,>"!&5%@ABBCAB%D!<3;,=2/35&==</534&13E>=5&13F,/<13&1235!<3/!,5</534&13)135!<3;,=23G<3H)1-#)1-34<<5+!54=:

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Bill Gates TheEntire 150,000 xRoom

Business involves Pareto distributions

But wait, there’s more…

4 Dots

6 Connections

64 Patterns

10 Dots

45 Connections

? Patterns

Patterns35,184,372,088,832

In business a fewpatterns are more valuable than all the rest

but which ones?

“The only valid model of a complex system is the system itself. Murray Gell-Mann

Steve Blank“Get out of the building!”

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Figure outthe problem

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Anthropologist

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No focus groups

Talk to people in person

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Introduce yourself to 3 other people!"#$%%;;;+0,//P5+0,4%453&0!)*<9%Q>-<1<6L6MRSTO+J#-:

Development Marketing Sales

Problem TeamSolution Team

For whom, whatproblem are you solving?

Finding prospects

“Customers don’t care about your solution. They care about their problems. Dave McClure

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Make a list of 10 people you could contact directly or ask for an introduction!"#$%%;;;+0,//P5+0,4%453&0!)*<9%Q>-<1<6L6MRSTO+J#-:

Sketch out the email or script you will use!"#$%%;;;+0,//P5+0,4%453&0!)*<9%Q>-<1<6L6MRSTO+J#-:

Problem Interview

Who isfeeling the pain?

What painare they feeling?

How do they makethe pain go away today?

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Testablehypothesis

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List the problem hypotheses you want to test!"#$%%;;;+0,//P5+0,4%453&0!)*<9%Q>-<1<6L6MRSTO+J#-:

Problem Interview OverviewRunning Lean by Ash Maurya, page 118.

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Solution Interview

Problem TeamSolution Team

Who:Early adopters

How:Make money

What:Primary problem

The [feature name] will solve the[problem name]

Testing your solution

Solution Interview OverviewRunning Lean by Ash Maurya, page 142.

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Build the boilerplate for your solution interview!"#$%%;;;+0,//P5+0,4%453&0!)*<9%Q>-<1<6L6MRSTO+J#-:

Innovation

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Typicalmarket research: Customer attributes

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Innovationmarket research:Addressing what problem

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What is yourcompetition?

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Milkshake Test What job is your solution beinghired to perform?

Types ofInnovation

SustainingDisruptive

Is there a large population ofpeople who historically have not had the money, equipment, or skill to do this thing forthemselves, and as a result have gone without it altogether or have needed to pay someone with more expertise to do it for them? To use the product or service, do customers need to go to an inconvenient, centralized location?

Are there customers at the lowend of the market who would be happy to purchase a product with less (but good enough)performance if they could get itat a lower price? Can we create a business model that enables us to earn attractive profits at the discount prices required to win the business of theseoverserved customers at the low end?

Is the innovation disruptive to all of the significant incumbent firms in the industry? If it appears to be sustaining to one or more significant players in the industry, then the odds will be stacked in that firm’sfavor, and the entrant is unlikely to win.

Disruptive

Building the MVP

Validated LearningEric Ries

Design Thinking

Pirate MetricsRunning Lean by Ash Maurya, page 154.

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Primary book that informed this talk

Other books that informed this talk

People who informed this talk David Max Ash ClaytonSnowden Boisot Maurya ChristensenFrank H. Mark Eric Knight Newman Ries Steve Blank

What Problem Is Your Startup Solving?

by Zach Nies

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