heyauds

I got 99 problems

.... and they're all worth solving!

how to find problems that are worth solving

A common mistake people make when coming up with a business idea is they focus on the solution instead of the problem. The risk here is you invest all of your time, effort and money into building something that no one is going to use.

Problem

"Solution"

So how do we make sure we're fixing the right problems?

Introducing Customer Journey Maps.

Customer Journey Maps are a Design Thinking tool used for finding REAL problems. They visualise a person's end-to-end experience with a product or service. Most importantly, they can help you identify pain points (e.g. frustrations, challenges, “I hate when..”) that people have.

These pain points are nuggets of gold and represent valuable problems just waiting to be fixed.

Take uber for example:

Before Uber came along, we had to catch taxis. So let’s examine how Uber revolutionised the taxi experience using a simple Journey Map.

1. What is the main customer goal? To get from point A to point B. 2. What steps does a customer take to achieve their goal? (I suggest mapping these out on a page like below).

3. What are the frustrations and challenges (pain points) a customer experiences at each step?

4. What are ways to solve each pain point?

Now this is just a short and simple example but hopefully you can see how breaking down a journey can surface problems ripe for disruption. With these problems identified, you can begin to ideate creative and innovative ways to solve them, just like Uber! What are other products, services and experiences could you apply this technique to? If you have any questions and want to explore Journey Maps or other Design Thinking tools, give me a yell on Twitter: