How do you find problem-solution fit?

It’s like starting a dance party. You need those early evangelists to bust a move first. Without them, you’re just dancing by yourself in your living room.

How to Find Problem-Solution Fit 

• Why Read:

  • Startup founders should read this article to understand the crucial concept of achieving Problem-Solution Fit before progressing to Product-Market Fit.

• Featuring:

  • Sahil S (@venturecrews), VC at Stedu Fund

• Link: 

  • “How To Find Problem-Solution Fit? (A Framework)”

Key Concepts and Tactics:

• The Importance of Problem-Solution Fit:

  • Point: Problem-Solution Fit is a crucial stage where founders discover a deep customer problem in an underserved market, and it is the foundation for a successful startup.

  • "Problem-Solution Fit (PSF) is when founders have discovered a deep customer problem in an underserved market. This stage is generally very early and often in the seed or pre-seed stage."

  • "Take Airbnb as an example. The founders identified a problem when they started renting out their rooms to earn extra money. Then, they created a platform to help even more people earn extra income—the solution. Their Problem-Solution Fit moment came when they received their first bookings during the Industrial Design Conference in 2008, then again via the Democratic National Convention in Denver. They learnt that large events with hotel shortages were their secret sauce for growth. Armed with the problem-solution opportunity, they applied for Y-Combinator and got in. They expanded into New York (where there are always hotel shortages), and the rest is history."

  • "Every successful startup starts from finding Problem-Solution Fit → then Product-Market Fit → then Scale."

• The Evolution of Problem-Solution Fit:

  • Point: Problem-Solution Fit takes shape gradually, from a blurry gas form to a fluid liquid form and eventually a tangible, solid form.

  • "Blurry Gas Form: In this form, founders identify a problem and a solution that makes perfect sense in their minds. They either write it down or keep it in their minds. The product lives in the founder's imagination, without evidence."

  • "Fluid Liquid Form: Next, the founders identify a solution and ascertain whether their audience resonates with it. They'll attempt to attract early-evangelists and iterate through landing pages, demonstrations, or prototypes."

  • "Tangible Solid Form: In this form, founders leverage demonstrations from digital prototypes, videos, sticky-tape solutions, and experiments to assess the efficacy of their proposed solution. The savvy founders will try to convert some early-evangelists into paying customers."

• Using the Right Tools to Capture Problem-Solution Fit:

  • Point: Leverage tools like Jeff Patton's Opportunity Canvas, the Lean Canvas, or the Business Model Canvas to capture the idea as it evolves and validate assumptions.

  • "During these 3 phases, it's best to use a tool to capture the idea as it evolves from gas, liquid and solid forms. It's important to highlight the assumptions as the idea evolves and validate them."

  • "Jeff Patton's Opportunity Canvas tool is my favourite tool as it focuses more on product discovery and customer problems."

  • "The Lean Canvas tool is always a great choice for startup founders. The Lean Canvas is more holistic for your startup, whilst the Opportunity Canvas focuses more on the product."

  • "If you're building a B2B product, the Business Model Canvas is a great option as it highlights partner channels and key resources you need to get you started."

• Focusing on Early-Evangelists:

  • Point: Identify and target early-evangelists who are willing to use an unfinished product to gain a competitive advantage or for bragging rights.

  • "Problem-Solution Fit focuses on a tiny group of early-evangelists who are comfortable with missing features, as long as it solves their core problem. (Bad UX, no onboarding, and manual work-arounds are part of the fun!)"

  • "Your early-evangelists are the catalysts of your product. These customers are willing to risk buying an unfinished product to gain an early competitive advantage or purely for bragging rights. (P.s. Bragging rights are never long-term strategies but it can get you off the ground)."

  • "The ultimate test for early-evangelists is their willingness to pay for your product. When presenting your product idea to your 'evangelists'— don't be afraid to ask for a sale. If there are signs of hesitation (from both sides), you are not solving a problem deep enough."

    • "Go deeper and ask: 'What would make you pay a small deposit for this product?'"

• Strategies to Find Early-Evangelists:

  • Point: Use strategies like leveraging your network, finding virtual gathering places, attending events, using paid advertising, and partnering with agents or consultants to reach early-evangelists.

  • "Ask your existing friends, family, colleagues, investors or even LinkedIn to connect with people experiencing the problem you're trying to solve. Offer to advise, free work, kudos, or anything your network finds valuable in return."

  • "These are online or offline gatherings where your early evangelists go to find a solution to solve their problems. Places like forums, social media groups, Twitter, slack groups or even shared offices."

  • "Attend conferences, seminars, trade shows and meetups where your early-evangelists go for pleasure or work. Or, if there are no events for your problem space, create one yourself and use your network and the 'gathering place' above to spread the word."

    • "Pro Tip: Find a way to access the attendees' list so you can reach out beforehand and set up 1:1 time with potential prospects. The networking starts BEFORE the event begins."

  • "In some instances, paid advertising might be a great way to get your startup in front of people.”

• Developing the Product for the Few, Not the Many:

  • Point: Focus on creating a product that solves a meaningful problem for a specific group of customers rather than trying to satisfy everyone.

  • "The sweet spot for startup success lies in the intersection of a meaningful problem and a right solution. In a startup, the first product is not designed to satisfy a mainstream customer, and that's okay. No startup can afford to build a product that suits every customer and be successful at it."

  • "You're creating a product for your customers, not your ego."

How to Build a MOAT with SEO

Why Read: 

• Understand the importance of implementing SEO strategies early on for organic growth and building a defensible competitive advantage.

Featuring:

• Lidia Vijga (@byvi_co), Co-Founder & CEO at DeckLinks

Link: 

• “Startup SEO: How to Build a Defensive MOAT As a Startup”

Key Concepts and Tactics:

• The Importance of Early and Consistent SEO for Startups:

  • Point: Startups should prioritize SEO from the beginning to build a strong foundation for predictable, compounding growth and a defensible competitive moat.

  • "Beyond just measurability, SEO strategies actually compound over time in a way that paid advertising simply doesn't. We stopped publishing new content on our first startup website back in 2021. Yet, we are still getting organic traffic years later without lifting a finger!"

  • "Most importantly though, if you do SEO right from the start, you can build a powerful defensive MOAT. Once you've earned those first-page keyword rankings, it becomes extremely difficult for competitors to displace you."

• Focusing on Customer Search Intent Over Product Messaging:

  • Point: Create content around the problems, questions, and topics your target audience is searching for, rather than solely promoting your product.

  • "The biggest mindset shift you need to make for successful startup SEO is realizing it's not about you and your product – it's 100% focused on tapping into the search intent of your ideal customer profile (ICP)."

  • "So instead of creating content around what your product does, you need to deeply understand the problems, questions, and topics your ICP is already Googling. There are tons of free tools and ways to get insight into this."

• Leveraging Google's E-E-A-T Framework for High-Quality Content:

  • Point: Prioritize creating content with strong Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness signals to build a defensible SEO moat.

  • "To build a defensible SEO MOAT, you'll need to prioritize creating high-quality content that checks those important E-E-A-T boxes. E-E-A-T is the foundation of your SEO strategy."

  • "Experience is huge for them now. Google wants to see content written from real first-hand experience. Not just generic regurgitations."

  • "Google also loves it when you tap into the expertise of credible industry experts and thought leaders."

  • "Then you need to build authoritativeness into your content through data-driven research, proprietary studies and surveys, visualizations, and other unique assets."

  • "Google wants to see you citing highly reputable, trusted sources. We're talking universities, government websites, Wikipedia – not just random blogs and junk sites."

• Collaborating on Content to Strengthen E-E-A-T Signals:

  • Point: Partner with customers, industry experts, and complementary brands to co-create content that adds first-hand experience, expertise, and credibility.

  • "Your customers are a goldmine for first-hand, battle-tested experience. We frequently loop in customers to co-author detailed articles, guides, and use case examples."

  • "Finding and partnering with respected thought leaders and subject matter experts is key for injecting true expertise into your content."

  • "Partnering with complementary companies and brands on co-marketing content collaborations is a win-win. You combine your respective audiences, assets, and budgets into a single, higher-quality piece of content that checks all the E-E-A-T boxes."

• Avoiding Common SEO Mistakes:

  • Point: Steer clear of critical SEO mistakes like neglecting technical issues, ignoring E-E-A-T signals, and failing to measure and adjust strategy.

  • "Even the most brilliant content strategies won't move a needle for startup websites that are riddled with technical SEO issues slowing down or confusing for Googlebot."

  • "With the rise of AI-generated content, Google has doubled down on prioritizing content with robust expertise, authority, and trust signals."

  • "Simply publishing a bunch of content and hoping for the best is a surefire way to waste time and resources. SEO has to be an iterative, measured approach."

• Implementing an SEO Checklist for Success:

  • Point: Follow a comprehensive SEO checklist to build an unbreachable SEO moat, including keyword research, technical optimization, quality content creation, link building, and performance tracking.

  • "If you want to build an unbreachable SEO MOAT around your startup, you've got to nail these SEO checklist items. No cutting corners."

  • "First things first, get crystal clear on your objectives. Actual SEO Goals, no messing around with vanity SEO metrics that many shady SEO agencies like to focus on to distract their clients."

  • "This is the core of any good startup SEO strategy. You've got to deeply understand what your ideal customers are already searching for and then build your whole content strategy around matching that intent."

  • "Even the most brilliant, E-E-A-T optimized SEO efforts get derailed by dumb technical SEO issues. Use SEO tools like Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, or Lumar (formerly Deepcrawl) to identify any indexing errors, site structure problems, duplicate landing pages, slow page speeds, and other gremlins bogging your website pages down."

  • "At the end of the day, search engines' #1 priority is identifying content that provides the best possible answer and experience for searchers. That means you have to create robust, thorough, high-quality content directly answering user's search queries."

  • "A kick-ass backlink profile loaded with authoritative, highly relevant inbound links from other trusted sites? That's the dream for bootstrapped startups. Should be a top priority through partnerships, PR, influencer marketing, and content collaborations."

  • "Consistent measurement and iteration is everything in SEO. Get your Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools accounts set up ASAP to monitor critical metrics like rankings, traffic, impressions, indexing issues, and more."

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