VIABILITY

Problem Framing

The difference between a successful product and a failure comes down to whether the digital product team framed the problem well. Here's how we'll make sure your product isn't one of the failures.

What it is?

Problem framing is the most fundamental but also often most ignored step of digital product development. In its core it answers these key questions:

 

 

  • What problem are we solving? 
  • Is this a problem worth solving?

 

 

Now while answers to these questions seem obvious when laid out before you, most entrepreneurs and companies don’t spend time answering them. Instead, they start building a digital product right away and saying that they will iterate and pivot later on.

 

These kinds of entrepreneurs and companies act as if time and money are infinite, not realizing that each day of doing problem framing saves months or even years down the road of digital product building. When we talk about doing problem-framing, we’re talking about talking to many customers and at the same time doing in-depth market research. 

How do we do it?

As we start talking to customers we’re trying to answer whether the problem we defined in the first question is worth solving. To better answer this question we can ask ourselves further questions:

 

  • Do customers consider this problem to be one of the top 3 problems they have?

  • Would customers immediately buy a solution to this problem if we provided it to them right now?

  • If we solve this problem, do we have ways to distribute our solution to the customer?

These questions are a reality check. If your customers don’t consider the problem you’re solving their top priority, you’ll have a hard time getting their attention from other more important problems. 

 

If your customers won’t immediately buy a solution to this problem, then this problem probably isn’t critical. 

 

If you can’t distribute your solution, it doesn’t matter how good your solution is, because customers will never see it. 

 

A successful digital product is a solution to a problem that is a priority and critical to the customer, with well defined distribution channels. 

Why problem framing?

What’s interesting here is that our past clients have also noticed that problem-framing:

 

 

1.) Makes it easier to identify key customer segments.

 

2.) Gives  a digital product a framework of focus to not get distracted with redundant features.

 

3.) Makes it easier to measure performance by choosing metrics that indicate how well the product is solving the problem.

 

4.) Makes it easier to formulate marketing messages as well as sales and investment pitches.

 

5.) Shows investors your understanding of the underlying market and the hierarchy of needs in it. 

 

 

Problem-framing is not easy, but it’s vital to the success of a digital product. Through a 5 day sprint, our team in cooperation with you will define the problem of your digital product. 

What you'll get:

Our process

1. Problem Framing

Before we start thinking about validating solutions in a design sprint, problem framing helps us validate there’s a problem worth solving.

2. Design Sprints

The Design Sprint is a framework for answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers.

3. MVP Development

We develop a functional MVP based on the primary customer journey and prepare you for shipping functional product to your customers.

Free 30 minutes - consultation call could really make a difference.

Make sure you are properly informed about the possibilities you and your business have in a modern digital space. During this call you will: