Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution: A Handbook for Entrepreneurs

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No one cares about traffic information,” the CEO said, rebuffing what I thought was a brilliant idea. “They care about navigation. I don’t think traffic information will be actionable.” Is it really possible to solve a problem without defining it? In their paper Identifying Viable ‘Need-Solution Pairs’: Problem Solving Without Problem Formulation, MIT Professors Eric Von Hippel and Georg von Grogh demonstrate that, far from being uncommon, this is actually quite a common occurrence. The rolling suitcase, for instance, was invented when Bernard Sadow, struggling to carry his heavy luggage, observed an airport worker effortlessly rolling a heavy machine on a wheeled skid. In cases like this, the problem is identified and formulated (if at all) only after the discovery of a solution.

Pitfall: Most customer feature requests are framed as solutions, but customers are often not good solution designers.

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One of the things that stood out to me about this book was Levine's emphasis on the importance of customer experience. He argues that by falling in love with the problem and working tirelessly to solve it, businesses can not only improve the customer experience, but also drive innovation and growth. Levine provides numerous examples from his own experiences at Waze and other companies to illustrate his points. Uri Levine is a two-time unicorn builder of Waze and Moovit, which are both traffic and navigation apps. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent is planning to proactively explore the solutions first approach across a number of countries in coming years. We are interested to test through concrete interventions whether providing our staff with skills to map local solutions, positive deviants and lead innovators can lead to the discovery of new insights and more sustainable results. Uri Levine brings a vast entrepreneurial experience to the table. Thus, When Uri Levine gives you an advice, you want to read it. He shares valuable insights in this book on how to embrace the challenges and problems during the way of building a successful business.

So how can we change it? While we know what’s the right decision, we are always looking for confirmation.

by Uri Levine and was extremely impressed. As the co-founder of Waze, Levine brings a wealth of entrepreneurial experience to the table and shares valuable insights in this book on how to embrace the challenges and problems that inevitably arise in business. All of them knew within the first month. There was one guy who knew before he even started. The problem was not that the team wasn’t right. The problem was that the CEO did not make hard decisions. Making hard decisions is hard, and this is why making the hard decisions usually goes all the way to the top of an organization. But there is more to it. “The problem was that the CEO did not make hard decisions.” Each of these was a simple enough feature request, but rather than just implementing them, we got the requestors on the phone. We asked them what they were trying to accomplish (outcome) and explored why the current product failed them (problem). In this case, we learned that these users wanted to use their Lean Canvases in investor presentations, and the default view was not visually interesting enough. Once you understand the job, the axes of “better” get clearer. If many people have this problem, however, then go and speak to them to understand their perception of the problem. Only afterwards, build the solution. If you follow this path, and your solution eventually works, you will be creating value, which is the essence of your journey. If you start with the solution, however, you might be building something that no one cares about, and that is frustrating when you’ve invested so much effort, time, and money. In fact, most start-ups will die because they were unable to figure out product-market fit, which in many cases happens when focusing on the solution rather than the problem. How would this translate in a development context? Take the case of two women empowerment programmes we have been involved with in emerging economies: in both cases, programme formulation based on traditional analytical approaches (problem definition based on context analysis, surveys, research) led both organisations to approaches that they recognised as ineffective and “stale”.

If you listen to all your customers, pretty soon, you’ll have a bloated monster on your hands. Even if you listen to your most valuable customers, you might still build stuff that they don’t use. This is because most feature requests are framed as solutions, not problems. And customers are often not good at devising solutions — even to their problems. “It’s not the customer’s job to know what they want.”An awesome organization would be a company that is exceptional, impressive, and inspiring, with great DNA. It will be admired for its achievements, reputation, culture, and values. One that, among other things, retains top talent. Think of all the services that you use every day: searching Google, using WhatsApp, opening Waze, Uber, Netflix. Ask yourself: What is the difference between using any of those things today compared to the first time I used it? There is no difference. We are searching Google today the same way that we searched Google for the first time. We are using Uber today the same way, and we are using Waze today the same way. So what is the issue with the problem definition default? In our experience, there are at least three: