Find out what are the core problems they’re experiencing, and whether they would pay money to solve those problems.
Some people refer to these as “pain points” or what “keeps them up at night”.
The community may have multiple problems that need to be solved, but you only need to find and solve one problem at a time.
For example, a community of “freelance graphic designers” may have a problem of “manual invoicing takes too much time, leads to mistakes, and causes frustration”.
It’s possible that multiple communities have similar needs and problems, but in this activity you’re focusing on the needs and problems of one community that you identified. If you realize that other communities have similar needs and problems, make a note of it to return to that later and explore expanding your business to serve these additional communities in the future.
Not everyone in the community has the same problems. For example, some freelance graphic designers may be paying to use a platform to do their billing and so they don’t have the problem of manual invoicing, but others may have this problem. This is the topic of the next step, identifying the market.
A community may have many needs and problems. Here are some helpful tips on identifying them.
Customer needs
Look at your customer’s needs through a variety of perspectives. Here are at least 3 frameworks for identifying perspectives to examine.
Framework 1. Categories of physical needs (water, food, clothing, shelter, reproduction) and emotional needs (certainty, variety, connection, significance, growth, contribution).
Framework 2. Categories of health, wealth, and relationships.
Framework 3. Aspects of the environment (political, military, economic, social, information, infrastructure, geography, climate).
For more details on these, see empathetic assessment.
Customer problems
Look for the problems that keep people awake at night, or problems that are on their mind all the time, or are deeply frustrating.
Compass
After you identify the needs, continue to identify the market.
Back to top – steps to start a new business.
See more executive activities for startup and revenue activities for marketing and sales and more.