1 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:05,000 - The best products address a pain, 2 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:07,080 and they address a pain someone has. 3 00:00:07,080 --> 00:00:11,090 Sometimes, as an entrepreneur, it's pain that you've felt 4 00:00:11,090 --> 00:00:13,070 in a prior business or in a prior 5 00:00:13,070 --> 00:00:15,030 thing that you've been involved in. 6 00:00:15,030 --> 00:00:16,080 You're scratching your own itch, 7 00:00:16,080 --> 00:00:19,050 it's a wonderful cliche that gets used a lot. 8 00:00:19,050 --> 00:00:23,040 You're doing something that addresses your own pain. 9 00:00:23,040 --> 00:00:27,000 In my first company, when I was starting to learn 10 00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:28,090 how to sell the product that we had, 11 00:00:28,090 --> 00:00:33,010 a wise person, who happened to be a consultant 12 00:00:33,010 --> 00:00:35,040 that helped people understand how to sell, 13 00:00:35,040 --> 00:00:37,090 once said, "The best way to sell people something 14 00:00:37,090 --> 00:00:40,030 "is by finding their pain and then 15 00:00:40,030 --> 00:00:43,000 "selling a solution to their pain." 16 00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:44,040 And so, when you're thinking about what 17 00:00:44,040 --> 00:00:47,060 you're trying to build as a product, 18 00:00:47,060 --> 00:00:49,030 start from the frame of reference of, 19 00:00:49,030 --> 00:00:52,080 what pain are you solving for your customer? 20 00:00:52,080 --> 00:00:55,030 If you're the customer, that's easy to relate to. 21 00:00:55,030 --> 00:00:57,000 If you're not the natural customer, 22 00:00:57,000 --> 00:00:58,090 if you're not scratching your own itch, 23 00:00:58,090 --> 00:01:01,010 try to put yourself in the position of the customer 24 00:01:01,010 --> 00:01:04,000 that you believe you're going to have. 25 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:06,060 Spend real time, not just theoretically with your 26 00:01:06,060 --> 00:01:09,000 potential customer, but go find some real customers. 27 00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:11,070 Go find people who are going to buy your product, 28 00:01:11,070 --> 00:01:15,080 and talk to them specifically about what their pain is 29 00:01:15,080 --> 00:01:18,000 with existing solutions or with their 30 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:20,000 existing approach to certain things. 31 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:23,020 And use the word pain to underscore 32 00:01:23,020 --> 00:01:25,010 that is has to be significant. 33 00:01:25,010 --> 00:01:28,080 It's not an inconvenience, it's not an annoyance, 34 00:01:28,080 --> 00:01:32,000 it's not something that maybe they desire a little bit. 35 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:33,090 It's something that's actually causing them 36 00:01:33,090 --> 00:01:37,010 pain and frustration in their normal world. 37 00:01:37,010 --> 00:01:40,080 And if you can start to conceptualize what is 38 00:01:40,080 --> 00:01:44,000 the customer pain that your product is addressing, 39 00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:45,040 doesn't mean that that's necessarily 40 00:01:45,040 --> 00:01:48,010 how you go to market with it, it's not how you 41 00:01:48,010 --> 00:01:50,070 build the sales strategy around it, 42 00:01:50,070 --> 00:01:52,050 but it helps you define very clearly 43 00:01:52,050 --> 00:01:56,010 the precise characteristics of what that product is, 44 00:01:56,010 --> 00:01:58,000 so that you're actually addressing something 45 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:00,080 that really matters to your potential customer 46 00:02:00,080 --> 00:02:03,020 versus something that's just on the surface. 47 00:02:03,020 --> 00:02:04,060 So, there's a couple of different ways 48 00:02:04,060 --> 00:02:08,060 to go figure out what your customer's pain is. 49 00:02:08,060 --> 00:02:11,070 The first, and the easiest, is if you or people 50 00:02:11,070 --> 00:02:14,060 that are directly connected to you in your network 51 00:02:14,060 --> 00:02:17,090 are the customer, you're already feeling the pain; 52 00:02:17,090 --> 00:02:20,020 and so, being really introspective 53 00:02:20,020 --> 00:02:23,020 and thinking hard about where the real pain is 54 00:02:23,020 --> 00:02:26,090 and then experimenting by building little mini products, 55 00:02:26,090 --> 00:02:30,000 right, prototypes of what you want to do to address the pain 56 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:33,010 to really see if that pain is what you think it is. 57 00:02:33,010 --> 00:02:34,090 It's one thing to think about it in your brain; 58 00:02:34,090 --> 00:02:36,040 it's another thing to try to create 59 00:02:36,040 --> 00:02:38,000 something that solves a problem. 60 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:40,060 Once you start trying to solve the problem 61 00:02:40,060 --> 00:02:42,020 and address the pain, you say, oh, well, 62 00:02:42,020 --> 00:02:43,080 you know, yeah, I thought that was big deal, 63 00:02:43,080 --> 00:02:46,040 but it wasn't quite that, it was really this. 64 00:02:46,040 --> 00:02:48,060 And so, the mere act of starting to do something 65 00:02:48,060 --> 00:02:50,080 for yourself, if you're the one that feels the pain 66 00:02:50,080 --> 00:02:54,060 as the customer, will help you get more precise on the idea. 67 00:02:54,060 --> 00:02:57,060 The other is literally go find customers 68 00:02:57,060 --> 00:02:59,040 or people you think are going to be customers, 69 00:02:59,040 --> 00:03:01,030 and there's going to be different archetypes. 70 00:03:01,030 --> 00:03:03,040 You'll have some customer archetypes that, 71 00:03:03,040 --> 00:03:05,070 or a customer archetype that's really easy to identify. 72 00:03:05,070 --> 00:03:08,050 You're like, oop, that's the customer right over there. 73 00:03:08,050 --> 00:03:10,000 Then you'll have somebody like, eh, maybe 74 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:12,080 that is the customer, not quite sure. 75 00:03:12,080 --> 00:03:15,040 You want both of those, you want the really easy, 76 00:03:15,040 --> 00:03:17,080 sweet-spot customer that's totally obvious 77 00:03:17,080 --> 00:03:19,090 that they're the ones that have what you perceive 78 00:03:19,090 --> 00:03:22,090 as the pain and then others who could be the customer 79 00:03:22,090 --> 00:03:25,020 because what you're looking for is not validation, 80 00:03:25,020 --> 00:03:27,060 just a check mark that, yep, that's the pain. 81 00:03:27,060 --> 00:03:29,060 What you're looking for is a feedback loop 82 00:03:29,060 --> 00:03:33,000 with a potential customer to help you identify 83 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:35,070 and hone the product and the opportunity 84 00:03:35,070 --> 00:03:38,010 more clearly to address their pain. 85 00:03:38,010 --> 00:03:39,060 An interesting thing comes out of this 86 00:03:39,060 --> 00:03:41,080 a lot of times if you can get three or four or five 87 00:03:41,080 --> 00:03:44,030 different archetypes of potential customers, 88 00:03:44,030 --> 00:03:47,090 is that you can actually build a more general product 89 00:03:47,090 --> 00:03:51,030 that solves more specific pain points 90 00:03:51,030 --> 00:03:53,030 rather than a very narrow product 91 00:03:53,030 --> 00:03:56,010 that solves one pain point. 92 00:03:56,010 --> 00:03:57,070 At the very beginning of your company, 93 00:03:57,070 --> 00:04:00,030 if you have a significant enough pain point, 94 00:04:00,030 --> 00:04:03,040 one product that addresses one pain point's enough. 95 00:04:03,040 --> 00:04:04,090 But as you're building your business 96 00:04:04,090 --> 00:04:06,020 and you're scaling your business up, 97 00:04:06,020 --> 00:04:08,060 you're going to want to extend it to other things. 98 00:04:08,060 --> 00:04:11,060 So, having that context of what the universe 99 00:04:11,060 --> 00:04:14,040 of problems your potential product can solve, 100 00:04:14,040 --> 00:04:17,000 even if you choose and focus on just one of 'em, 101 00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:20,000 is really helpful context as you're getting started.