Start-ups Should Be All About Solving Problems

Start-ups take birth by solving problems. If there are no problems there would be no need for start ups. Big companies can solve them more efficiently anyway. But lets get real, Problems do exist and arise all the time. And start-ups come to the rescue to solve these problems.

Yet somewhere amid all this information, start-ups tend to forget that their sole purpose is to solve a specific problem and make some money while they are at it.

I have realized through my own experiences that the product made real sense while it was solving a real problem. And the people who benefited were willing to pay for it and not just that, they were happy to consume the service for a price.

Yet this simple thought gets lost the moment the idea hits the ground, and the entrepreneur starts worrying about a million other things that “seem” important. And then sometimes even while focusing on a problem things may not go in the right direction. In this post I will try to talk about some of these points.

Is your start-up solving a problem ?
You may have a web3.0 social networking highly viral idea. But are you solving a problem. If you cannot answer this question in 5 seconds then you have failed.Take a step back. Don’t do anything else until you have figured out what problem you are solving. Sometimes the problem is evident. Sometimes its hidden or not well expressed. But its out there find it.

Is it worth solving?
Now this is where it gets a little more hard to answer. Go ask the people who face the problem . Some times the problem is just too small. More often the problem may be just too big. And almost always there is someone else out there who is also trying to solve the same problem. If the problem is too small, look wider . If its too big. Break it up into mutually exclusive pieces and pick one to solve. And don’t bother if there is someone else you know who is trying to solve it too. Unless the market is already mature, you need not worry of the other players. In a few months you should expect more competitors to fight you and many of the existing ones to vanish.

Getting Out There Fast
Now that you have a problem to solve and a solution to offer. Get out there. In front of your customers. Solve the problem for them and dont shy from asking a price for it. We always pay for things where we are able to identify the value we get. Either it is a pack of popcorn at the movie theaters or the sundae at the
ice-cream store. How ever you woudnt pay if the value is not clear. So keep the value proposition simple and clear. You offer this solution and you charge a certain amount for it.

Never Underestimate Getting Every Customer Really Happy And Excited About Your Service
Large companies have thousands of customers and can get away without caring about them. As a start-up you should be fanatical about customer satisfaction. Just make every customer really really happy about your service. When the times are bad this is the only strength you can rely on. Never Never Never ignore your customer you cannot afford to do it.

Have Fun
Just Have Fun , if you are running your own startup and still not having fun, there is something really wrong. Make sure you and the entire team and enjoying every moment.

The Consumption Chain – Whats That?

Whether you offer a product or a service there is a certain flow of events from procuring the input resources to delivering a solution. While. There has been a lot of progress in analyzing this supply chain and ensuring that efficiencies are achieved . There seems to be little effort in the consumption chain.

The Consumption Chain
So what is a consumption chain? Consumption Chain is broadly the set of events that start from the first sale of your product to the retailer/distributor/consumer to the point of actual consumption and the capture and transmission of the consumption experience back to the organization. This information has to flow to the right teams in operations, product and design so that there is a continuous improvement process built into the system.

Information like

• What happens when your consumers buy your products ?
• How did they like the product ?
• What would they like to see more of and what would they like to avoid?
• When do they need your services again ?
• In what scenarios do they like to get in touch with you ?
• And most importantly how can such information be driven through the organization to the right personnel so it meets its logical end.

So Why Has the Consumption Chain Been Largely ignored
Well a lot of information is still captured. Companies like to capture information of whats selling, whos buying it etc. But the lack of ownership for that data means that this information is hugely under utilized. The data is there but no one bothers. Its just that no one is sure who is responsible
for it and hense its just left there.

Marketing/Operations/Design who owns this anyway
Companies are still unsure who should use this information and how it must be put to use. In most companies customer feedback is still a marketing function than an operational function . Further a problem may have its roots in not just one but several departments. Ensuring that issues meet a logical end has be driven from the top management. I myself have been in so many scenarios at my bank or my favourite restaurant where I wanted to give some feedback but there was just no real way to do so. The ground staff seemed to just not want to accept the feedback as it would effect them directly .  As a result customers get indifferent to the business and there is no form of customer loyalty.

Addressing the Consumption Chain
Closing the feedback loop is a key step. It helps you understand the health of your business. How customers value your business and where you could be doing more. This allows operations to ensure that service levels are kept high and the businesses is healthy.

There is a quit a lot of work yet to be done in the consumption chain. If addressed well, we will have companies that are responsive and progressive.

United Breaks Guitars and an Expensive Lesson in Customer Care

Dave Carroll a musician from Halifax, Nova Scotia , traveled with his band and his guitar on United Airlines in the spring of 2008. The Guitar arrived broken and the airline did not bother to care for Daves complaints. Turns out after over 9months of pillar to post phone calls Dave decided to do what he does best and write and produce a song his experience.

Here is the story in short read the full story at http://www.davecarrollmusic.com/story/united-breaks-guitars/

dave carrol united breaks guitars

“In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didn’t deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say “no” to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world.”

With over 5.6Million views and 22,372 comments on you tube as of1st october 2009 the video and message have become a really big hit with lots of people relating to their experiences with UA. Many popular websites are carrying the story and the negative PR for United Airline cannot be even estimated.

What Just Happened?
Dave did not make just one phone call to UA. According to his version he tried to get his problem solved for over 9 months. And only when he did not receive any help he turned to the web to share his experience. This just shows how the problem does not lie with a single customer service representative but the process as a whole. How Customer Service can be carried out without a quantifiable way to check whether customers are satisfied or not. How small issues can be dragged on for years without and end. These problems always existed. All of us know that.

So what has changed?
The social media has changed the way information is created, shared, propagated and consumed. Individuals have the power of media that at one time only the biggest media houses could claim. At the same time user generated content is better received than productions. So while the problem always existed it is important to solve it now, because the customer will not sit down quietly. He will share is discontent with the world. And your One unhappy customer can make a huge impact on your business

This is a problem with most large businesses. One that has been ignored as it did not matter untill now. Can you still afford to ignore it?