PROBLEM SOLUTION FIT
DENNY WIJAYANTO Innovative Academy Head
EXPERIENCE
● 2013 - Now. Innovative Academy
● 2020 - Now. AWS Startup Scout
● 2018 - Now. Revolto Indonesia
● 2012 - 2013. PT Hamaren
● 2008 - 2011. Stranough Guitar Technology
● 2004 - 2005. PT. Astra International Tbk- Honda (Astra Motor)
AWARDS
● 2017 Ministry of Research & Higher Education Grant: TTBIC Certificate
● 2016 UGM Innovation Grant
● 2009 Winner of SME National Competition Wirausaha Muda Mandiri
● 2009 2nd Runner Up of SME National Competition at Dji Sam Soe Award
Outlines for today
1. Problem Solution Fit
2. Group task! :)
Source: Steve Blank. Eric Ries
“Problem-solution fit is the stage at which a startup business has a core group of happy and referenceable customers.
● You have already built an MVP (minimum viable product),
● You have found your early adopters (people to use your MVP),
● You have managed to solve a problem that your early adopters have,
● You have managed to charge enough for your solution so that users are happy.
Is this a real problem? Are there potential customers for this problem—real
customers who would pay for that solution? What are the possible solutions to that problem? Could a new product solve that problem or the existing ones are solving it already?
Source: John Dawes How many customers are considered to be “ok,” and indicate a problem-solution fit.
6–8 for an enterprise, 20–30 for mid-market, 50+ for SMBs
These numbers are NOT definitive and apply to businesses that have found a product-market fit.
But, they can help you get an idea of what is considered to be normal.
The customers you are serving should be loyal to your products or services, and should not be looking for alternatives.
Source: leanstartup.co/a-playbook-for-achieving-product-market-fit
“Product-market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.”
If you are generating value but not
capturing value back from the market you might by a NPO but not a business.
Product-Market Fit is the point in the life cycle of a product (or feature) where you can objectively verify quantitatively that you are capturing monetizable value from the market.
Product Market Fit Pyramid
PROBLEM SOLUTION FIT PRODUCT
MARKET FIT
Part of customer validation process Part of customer discovery process Transform your solution
into an optimized product
Who your customer is
Transform your solution into an optimized service
What problem they have
Make sure it’s a seamless fit with the market rather than a few potential customers
What kind of solution
you are going to create for that problem
The result is a product that customers are excited about and where you have a number of paying customers
The result is a solution that actually solves customer’s problem
Customer Development
Source: Steve Blank, Brant Cooper
Source: Ash Maurya, 2019
Problem Solution Fit: How to Measure?
Source: Daria Nepriakhina
How to Determine Problem Solution Fit
1. Customer State fit
to make sure you understand your target group, their limitations and their currently available solutions, against which you are going to compete.
2. Problem-Behavior fit
to help you filter out the noise and identify the most urgent and frequent problems, understand the real reasons behind them and see which behavior supports it. Is this behavior weak or infrequent — is it a problem worth
solving?
3. Communication-Channel fit
to help you sharpen your communication with strong triggers, emotional messaging and reaching customers via the right channels.
4. Solution guess
translate all the validated data you have gathered into a solution that fits the customer state and his/her limitations, solves a real problem and taps into the common behavior of your target group.
Customer State Fit
GOAL: to help you understand your target group, their limitations and their available solutions, against which you are going to compete.
Questions to answer
● Who is your customer?
● What limits your customer from acting when a problem occurs?
E.g. Spending power, network connection, available devices.
● What solutions are available to the customer when he or she is facing the problem?
● What has he/she tried in the past?
● What are the pros/cons of existing solutions?
Problem - Behavior Fit
GOAL: to help you filter out the noise, identify the most urgent & frequent problems, understand the real reasons behind them and the behavior that supports them, i.e. Is this behavior, weak, infrequent, not intense enough? Is this a problem worth solving?
Questions to answer
● What problem do you solve for your customer?
● There could be more than one, explore it.
● How often does this problem occur?
● What is the cause of every problem on the list?
● What does your customer do about the problem currently (around it / directly or indirectly related to it)?
● How often does this related behavior happen?
Communication Fit
GOAL: to help you sharpen your communication with strong triggers, emotional messaging and reaching your customers via the right channel.
Questions to answer
● What triggers customer to act?
● Which emotions do people feel before / after this problem is resolved? Use it in your communication strategy.
● Where online does this behavior happen?
● Extract online and offline channels from the Behavior block.
Solution Guess
GOAL: to match gathered data to the best solution that fits into customer behavior and constraints.
Rules of this block
● If you are trying to find a new solution to an existing problem, fill in this block after you’ve got a better overview of the real situation (complete the other boxes first).
● If you are working on an existing solution (exploring growth strategies, problem with activation or solution adoption), then fill this block first, and then see whether your solution is still relevant after all the other blocks are filled in.
● Try to spot patterns and repeated keywords (i.e. Searching in Google, collecting on Pinterest) by listing problems and behavior related to it.
Some Tips
For higher chances of solution adoption
● Think of possible solutions that fit the user state limitations, tap into existing behavior, resemble what is already familiar to your target group.
● Take the best from alternative solutions — simulate natural triggers and tap into existing customer behavior, design a solution that is useful (solves a real problem), understandable (resembles what people already know) and accessible (available via the channels where these people are).
After giving it a first try you will likely realize that you were focusing on a different (less urgent or infrequent) problem, or that the real cause of the situation is worthy of attention. Extract repeated keywords (mediums, devices, situations), frequent behavior and emotions. That’s your cheat sheet towards a solution with a higher chance of adoption.
